Release Date: February 25, 2009
Track Listing
- J.S.B. Is Back
- WE!
- FREAKOUT!
- IT’S ALRIGHT
- let it go
- My Babygirl
- My Place
- FLY AWAY
- Be On Top
- FASTER,DEEPER, HARDER feat. DOBERMAN INC
- Make It Real
- Lovers Again
- Last Love Song
- GENERATION
- 24 karats feat. J Soul Brothers and DOBERMAN INC /EXILE
- My Buddy part. II / EXILE TAKAHIRO + NESMITH, SHOKICHI (J Soul Brothers)
Review
J Soul Brothers are a group who are affiliated with EXILE. Both share many qualities including sound, label and number of members (2 singers, 5 performers). They even shared the same group name as EXILE were once known as the J Soul Brothers from 1999-2001.
The current group of J Soul Brothers consist of vocalists NESMITH and SHOKICHI and performers NAOKI, KEIJI, TETSUYA, NAOTA and KENCHI. As I stated before their sound is similar to EXILE so if you’ve heard one of their most recent albums you’ll be familiar with what to expect here.
The only difference is that this is a much more straightforward R&B album. There are a lot of R&B jams and very few pop flavored songs or ballads to speak of. I liked that aspect of this album as it showed a different take on an established formula and made this group more distinctive from their predecessors.
This album is full of catchy, slickly produced tracks but there are a couple of hiccups present. The first being the take on Lovers Again. Um… It was nice I guess. I did like the new beat but the vocals weren’t really doing it for me.
I have never liked 24 karats and hearing it again on this album hasn’t really changed my mind. I just think the beat is hot. The final track (My Buddy) was just lame & I found nothing redeeming about it.
This was better than I had expected. The more outstanding tracks I found were definitely WE!, It’s Alright, Fly Away and Last Love Song. Everything else was solid with the exception of the previously mentioned hiccups.