Article Contributed by Gabriel David Barkin
Published on 2026-03-20
The Tedeschi Trucks Band (TTB) will release Future Soul (Fantasy Records) today. This is the sixth studio album from the 12-piece rock and soul group fronted by wife and husband Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.
TTB turned the lead production reins over to Mike Elizondo for this record. Elizondo has produced music by Eminem, Linkin Park, and Carrie Underwood. The result of his vision here with TTB is a radio-ready collection of high-energy music sure to excite current fans and attract some new ones.
TTB’s last studio album, produced by Trucks (who co-produced the new album with Elizondo), was the ambitious and rewarding I Am the Moon in 2022. That release was a sweeping, four-disc song cycle awash with musical and lyrical emotion composed in the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic and the death of the band’s keyboard player and flutist Kofi Burbridge. Drawing inspiration and stories from the 12th-century poem “Layla & Majnun” (by Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi), I Am the Moon was sensual, operatic, and brilliant.
Future Soul is a return to a more traditional album approach. The eleven songs on this record are connected by the threads that tightly bind one of America’s greatest bands in the 21st century—solid, soulful songwriting combined with an ensemble approach to arrangements that shines a spotlight or two on everybody in this rather large rock band. Even so, as expected with any TTB recording, Tedeschi’s powerful blues voice and Trucks’ sparkling guitar solos shine brightest and give the sonic quilt on Future Soul its overall vibrancy, warmth, and electricity.
“Tedeschi speaks highly of the chemistry. “Everybody’s amazing, and really, really talented, so that takes a lot of pressure off of us.” Trucks chimes in with similar sentiment: “There are six or seven people in this band who are band leaders on their own in their free time. It’s a pretty wild group, like a bunch of X Men and Women, a Marvel Universe kind of thing.”
With some deviation, Future Soul is mostly a heart-forward, optimistic and fun record, the perfect antitoxin for today’s trying times. Forget your troubles, come on be happy! There’s a lot of love in this band, and they want to share it with you. But it’s not all fun and games. Some people done somebody wrong, and Susan Tedeschi wants you to know about it.
But more than anything, TTB wants to make sure your future’s got soul in it. If you keep TTB in your musical rotation, their wish is likely to come true.
As for what else the future may hold – I’m not really sure what’s going on with the comic book’y album cover, which features the superguitarhero couple racing down a street chased by green aliens and a malevolent clone of My Iron Giant. Maybe Susan and Derek are pitching in to help Yoshimi battle some pink robots?
More likely, it’s a reflection of the band’s adhesion to organic music. Trucks says, “A machine or some other person is never going to be able to do what we do. What Susan does, or what Mike [Mattioson] does, or what I do, or what this band does collectively, because everyone’s backgrounds are so unique and diverse,” he adds. “It’s just a special skill set. When you get out and play live music to give to people, they believe you, because it’s true and it’s honest.”
“Crazy Cryin’” gets the honesty party started with a tasty Trucks lick that leads into a mid-tempo blues shuffle. Before long, the horn section frames Tedeschi’s chorus, and the record is off and running in classic TTB style.
Next up is “I Got You,” which was released as the first single from Future Soul. This is where toes begin to tap, bodies begin to groove, and the record begins to soar. “I Got You” is in the love will keep us together vein of TTB’s sweetest songs like “Anyhow” and “Part of Me.” Tedeschi has fun with rhymes like ”combination please, hand over the keys” before a middle break with a doo-doo-doo vocal. A classic 70s fade-out over the guitar solo hints at the extended jam fans can expect on live versions of this song.
Casual listeners might be fooled at first by the opening melody of “Who Am I,” which leans heavily into the “Midnight in Harlem” groove. But where “Harlem” is a melancholy, sometimes bleak crossroads contemplation, “Who Am I” is squarely on the flip side, a reflection of the good life that comes to those who take the right path. When Tedeschi sings “hear the call of that old fashioned tune,” it’s a sweet reminder, not a painful or sad memory. And there’s a good old-fashioned Allman Brothers’ish solo by Trucks to tie it up with a pretty bow.
On “Hero,” it feels like Elizondo wants to get TTB onto hard rock radio. It’s a raucous, riffy song that has Tedeschi belting like an 80s rock radio goddess. Echoes of Bonnie Tyler and Melissa Etheridge ring when she sings “I’ve never felt better!” Instead of a guitar or horn solo, the closing minute is an energy-infused acceleration of the theme.
After that ride, we need a breather! “What in The World” starts out acoustic, and later Trucks plays a slide solo that has a southern front-porch feel. But it’s a short break before “Future Soul,” which jumps right back into a heavy groove. Even the horns are distorted, and Trucks uses more metal FX on his screaming guitar solo than any previous TTB recording I can think of. Trucks, playing a 1958 Flying V on “Future Soul,” says, “I just want it to sound like the building’s going to blow apart.”
Mike Mattison was the lead singer in the Derek Trucks Band before Trucks and Tedeschi merged their ensembles into one unstoppable force. “Under the Knife” is Mattison’s turn on the lead vocals, and here he stays in the midtempo range with prominent horns creating a soulful ambiance. Tedeschi comes back to the center mic for “Be Kind,” which stays in that classic soul lane but turns up the energy just a tad. “My life would be fine if you’d just be kind to me.” There’s a bit of Motown in “Be Kind.” Everything old is new again.
“Devil Be Gone” is another shuffle, kind of a Stevie Ray Vaughan-ish vibe to the rhythm. Trucks’ solo earns the adjective “bad!” in the instrumental stretch, and Tedeschi laughs out loud when she comes back with blues queen improvisation on the refrain. (This is one of two songs on Future Soul written by keyboardist Gabe Dixon, along with “Be Kind.”)
“Shout Out” is one of the most interesting and memorable songs on Future Soul. There are moments that switch unexpectedly and pleasantly from minor to major keys, and there’s a creative instrumental pause before the chorus that is more distinctive than most of the other passages on this record. When Tedeschi sings “you can always come back home,” the whole band makes you feel welcome!
There’s more comfort to be found and felt in “Ride On,” the final track. Now that we decided to, in fact, take Tedeschi at her word in the previous song and head back home, we can relax, take a load off, snuggle up with our loved ones. We reach front-porch territory here with a mellow vibe and a happy heart, Trucks lulls us with his savory slide to bring the record to a close.
If there’s anything lacking on Future Soul, it’s the absence of solos by the horn section. In concert, Kebbi Williams (saxophone), Emmanuel Echem (trumpet), and Elizabeth Lea (trombone) each get a few opportunities to step out in front. Likewise, organ solos by Gabe Dixon create a lot of highs in front of TTB’s audience, but there are none here. Certainly, some of the songs on this record will have those moments on the stage.
Tedeschi Trucks Band is Susan Tedeschi (guitar, vocals), Derek Trucks (guitar), Mike Mattison (guitar, vocals), Gabe Dixon (keys, vocals), Brandon Boone (bass), Tyler “Falcon” Greenwell (drums, percussion), Isaac Eady (drums, percussion), Mark Rivers (vocals, percussion), Alecia Chakour (vocals, percussion), Kebbi Williams (saxophone), Emmanuel Echem (trumpet), and Elizabeth Lea (trombone).
More info and tour dates at https://tedeschitrucksband.com/
