Robert Randolph & Th LICKETY SPLIT

For Robert Randolph & the Family Band, the three year break after 2010's somewhat stilted-sounding We Walk This Road was well deserved. By Randolph's own admission, their 280 date-per-year touring pace had taken its toll: playing music, let alone trying to find time to create it, had become a chore. Their Blue Note debut, Lickety Split, features an expanded FB lineup that includes vocalist Lenesha Randolph and guitarist Brett Haas; the group has gone back to its earliest recorded efforts for inspiration while furthering their new music considerably. The end result resembles their live sound more than any studio record in their catalog. Co-produced by the FB with Randolph's songwriting partners, it was primarily engineered and edited by Eddie Kramer, and mixed by Jim Scott. Opener "Amped Up" delivers the FB's trademark party-time meld of screaming hard rock, funk, gospel, blues, and R&B, all at full-tilt and in the raw. "Born Again" delivers the band's signature gospel message w