Style: Soul music with rock, blues, gospel; compare to James Brown, Al Green
Top tracks: “Feed My Soul,” “Dark Cloud,” “Take Me Away”
Describing the Holmes Brothers as a “meat and potatoes” band may sound pejorative, but it shouldn’t; all I mean to say is that their music is simple, never flashy, but always nourishing. On Feed My Soul, they make soul music with rock instruments and gospel overtones, produced by Joan Osborne and heavy on greasy organ vamps. The songs celebrate love as something enduring, something down-to-earth and real—except in the final song, “Take Me Away,” where they leave Earth’s orbit and aim for the heavens in a Psalm-like prayer for deliverance from these worldly blues.
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