As a guest of the esteemed Royal Street Inn—the rooms upstairs from the R Bar—a visitor puts himself or herself in the likely position to experience and perhaps participate in plenty of the culture that only the uniquely decorated local’s haunt could offer up. Moroux wrote much of the album during an extended stay at the inn, and the songs are inspired by experiences such as coming back to the late night, last drink atmosphere of the R Bar. They evoke the comfortably dark and musky feel of that last drink before calling a night.

For this second release for the Lafayette native and current Austin, Texas resident, Rex Moroux brought these songs to Haptown Studios in Nashville and the hands of producer Justin Tocket and mixing engineer Roger Moutenot. The resulting album consists of thickly layered string accompanied ballads, solid guitar and keyboard rock songs, and sparse, acoustic guitar-based songs all overlaid with Rex’s deeply sympathetic treatment of poetic and passionate lyrics.

The album kicks off with “Cincinnati,” a sonically textured portrait complete with strumming guitar, deep bowed cello and richly toned keyboard and guitar, all of which forms a strong foundation for Moroux’s honey-coated cutting vibrato. The slow and lamenting references to Christmas time on “December 24” are reminiscent of the Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York.” The rocking “Vino Maliero” imparts loneliness and desperation, aided well by high harmony background vocals from Terrance Simien and accordion work from Chris Stafford.

Taylor Desormeaux’s excellent photographs in the accompanying booklet record a number of the R Bar’s small nuances that make it such a valuable muse, and the album is filled with passionate recollections and lamentations over regretful circumstances—the type brought into memory over a drink shared with someone just getting off of their late shift. Though Royal Street Inn may not contain some of the more energetic aspects of Moroux’s live performances, it does showcase the voice and song writing of one of Acadiana’s favorite sons.