Tedeschi Trucks Band – Future Soul (Fantasy) (13th Floor Album Review)
Tedeschi Trucks Band’s Future Soul is a groove-led, tightly constructed record that places ensemble playing and songcraft at its centre.
It draws on blues, soul and rock traditions, presenting them with clarity and control to create a consistent, unified set of songs. This is music built on balance and intention, where each element is carefully shaped and the collective performance carries the impact.
Formed in 2010 around Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks, the band brings together deep musical lineages. Trucks’ connection to The Allman Brothers Band informs the dual-drummer drive and sense of arrangement, while Tedeschi’s grounding in blues and soul gives the songs their directness and emotional clarity. Over time, the group has grown into a large ensemble with horns and layered backing vocals, capable of both intricate interplay and a powerful, unified presence. Future Soul draws these elements together into a focused studio statement.
Crazy Cryin’ opens with a stop-start blues feel before settling into an upbeat groove, locking in quickly behind Tedeschi’s vocal. The recurring refrain, “it’s too late”, gives the track a reflective edge, while a brief, neatly phrased guitar break reinforces the emphasis on the musicians serving the song. I Got You follows with celebratory energy, built around an infectious groove where guitars weave around the vocal. Lines such as “I got you, you belong to me” are simple and direct, designed to land immediately, and the performance builds through momentum and interaction.
Who Am I provides the album’s most reflective moment. With a slower pulse and a reverberant guitar tone, it creates a hazy, introspective atmosphere. The lyric moves between abstraction and intimacy, asking “who am I without you in my arms”, while the music circles its central idea, dropping into a quieter passage before gradually rebuilding. It is one of the few points where the song is allowed to stretch and breathe, and it stands out for it.
Hero continues this measured approach, balancing steady rhythm with more atmospheric guitar textures, while What in the World is concise and understated, its melancholic tone carried by intertwined guitars and blended vocals. Both are well executed, though they sit within the album’s overall flow rather than pushing it forward.
The title track, Future Soul, is a clear high point. A deeper, more assertive groove underpins the song, with guitars building and receding against the rhythm and a vocal that carries real urgency. It feels more dynamic, more willing to lean into tension, and hints at the broader range of these musicians.
Across the second half, the band continue to work within this tightly controlled framework. Under the Knife leans into a blues shuffle, its guitar lines circling and responding to the vocal, while Be Kind lifts the tone with a direct emotional appeal, its central line, “just be kind to me”, delivered with clarity and supported by an arrangement that builds in energy and release. Devil Be Gone brings a stronger sense of urgency, with guitars interacting in a loose, conversational way that adds movement within the structure.
The closing tracks are more reflective. Shout Out unfolds slowly, its narrative vocal supported by sparse instrumentation, while Ride On settles into a steady groove that feels like a natural conclusion. The arrangement gradually eases back, allowing the album to come to rest.
Throughout Future Soul, the playing is assured, the arrangements are clear, and the balance between instruments is carefully judged. The album delivers songs that are direct, well-shaped and grounded in feel.
That clarity of purpose is the album’s defining strength. It is also where its limits start to show. In focusing so closely on structure and control, the band leave less room for the unpredictability and extended interplay that have often set them apart. For a group with this depth of musicianship, there are moments where the music feels contained rather than expansive, and where the instinct to refine edges begins to limit the sense of risk.
Future Soul is a confident, cohesive and well-realised record. It shows a band in full command of their sound. The more pressing question is whether that control captures the full extent of what they are capable of, or whether it ultimately holds something back.
John Bradbury
Future Soul is out Friday, March 20th on Fantasy Records
