I first heard about Alabama Shakes a few months ago when somebody posted a video of the groups Saturday Night Live performance of their song “Gimme All Your Love” on Facebook. I hate that I got into such a killer band almost four years after their first release, but sometimes it’s not about when you discover something, but rather that you found out about it in the first place. Regardless, the quartet is going to be releasing their second full length, Sound and Color today and no one could give a shit as to what you haven’t heard yet, but you certainly better pay attention to this or risk being a fool.
Sound and Color opens with the title track, a breathy, bell-laden hymn that forces frowns into smiles before giving birth to the mystical blues plea for peace in “Don’t Wanna Fight”. At exactly thirty eight seconds into the song, vocalist Brittany Howard lets out what could best be described as a whispered scream, a hair raising utterance that simply has no comparison.
Let me take a quick moment to say that Howard has literally one of the best voices in contemporary music I’ve heard since Amy Winehouse or Macy Gray. The woman is simply so talented.
For me, the track that stood out the most to me is “Gimme All Your Love.” Maybe it’s because it’s the first one I heard, maybe it’s because it’s just such a cool song, who knows. All I know is that even after listening to it twelve times, I still feel the hair raise on my arms and I get that same sinking feeling, the one where I know that when the song’s over, I’m going to be thinking only one thing; “…holy shit what did I just listen to?”
Sound and Color is, in a word, sexy. Songs like “Miss You” begin in this sort of dragging, slow pacing manner that speed up to a full on gallop; but only when the group sees fit. Others, such as “Guess Who” maintain a smoother, jazzy sort of tempo. The record is not so much a collection of songs that maintain a central theme and tone, but an amalgamation of fantastic musical endeavors that the group felt appropriate to lump together. Alabama Shakes has effectively created a record in Sound and Color, in which they are in charge of from beginning to end, giving in only when they see fit.
Rating: 4.8/5