Alabama Shakes
Sound & Color
Stream to April 21
Pressure was high when it came time for Alabama Shakes to make the followup to their 2012 critically acclaimed, three-time Grammy-nominated debut album, Boys & Girls. Its lead single, the Southern blues-rock earworm “Hold On,” took the young band from obscurity to ubiquity, with the late-night TV appearances and the endless touring that goes with that. Rolling Stone even dubbed “Hold On” the best song of the year, helping to make the Athens, Ga., group — fronted by Brittany Howard, with her unhinged stage presence and explosive guitar and vocal delivery — everybody’s favourite rock revivalists.
They were young and energetic with all the buzz a young band could ask for, but they didn’t want to repeat themselves.
“We didn’t want to do something like Boys & Girls, Part Two,” Howard says in the notes to accompany their new album, Sound & Color, available April 21 and streaming above (pre-order it on iTunes here).
So the group took its time, expanding on that soulful rock sound to create an eclectic album that incorporates soul, R&B and the blues, but also psychedelia, punk, prog, garage rock and African polyrhythms. Sound & Color is gritty and powerful and soaked in soul, with an ebb and flow that highlights the band’s ability to absolutely floor you one minute, then make you jump up and dance the next.
They cite touchstones like the Super Fly soundtrack, Gil Scott-Heron, the Temptations and jazz composer/producer David Axelrod, but that’s just a cursory glance at the depths of Sound & Color, the rare sophomore album that not only meets all the heightened expectations placed on the band, but works to set new ones.
Take album standout “Gimme All Your Love,” an R&B song that plays with the the quiet-loud-quiet alt-rock formula, but then takes it for a complete spin with a time change and a coda built around a screaming organ and a guitar solo — a place where the only logical end to the ascendant refrain of “gimme all your love” is for Howard to let out an involuntary, vocal chord-shattering howl. There are even touches of William Bell’s “I Forgot to be Your Lover” in there, Stax Records being yet another undoubtable touchstone for the Shakes.
Then just six songs later is “Gemini,” a six-and-a-half-minute funk jam that takes place on another planet and sounds like something you would expect from Prince or even D’Angelo and the Vanguard.
“It’s even harder now when people ask, ‘What kind of band are you?’ I have no clue,” Howard says.
Fortunately, she doesn’t have to say anything. The music speaks for itself.
Follow Jesse Kinos-Goodin on Twitter: @JesseKG