Review Summary: AND color.
They just keep getting better, folks. Welcome back to the first annual Grammy Album of the Year Roastacular! Short version: take all the Album of the Year noms and review them in my usual highly critical, neurotic, and tangential style. Lots of fun. Today is Alabama Shakes’ sophomore record, “Sound and Color.”
Now, as previously stated, I'm pretty neurotic. I care what people think about me. I overanalyze every motion I make and everything people are me do. I’m narcissistic and self-conscious at the same time. If a girl likes a bunch of my photos of mine on Instagram or flashes one little smile, I think she's in love with me. That's just how girls give subtle hints,
And I like my art to reflect that neurosis and self-centeredness. See: narcissism.
My favorite band is Say Anything, after all, a band (really just Max Bemis) who divulges every secret, desire, wrongdoing, whatever he wants, and then shouts it into a microphone over some quirky pop punk with the whole thing drenched in self-awareness and irony. I love it. And when I first heard Alabama Shakes' "Sound and Color," I was initially off put by its sincerity and emotion, but with multiple listens I fell in love with album, and she made me get out of my head and into its dirty, beautiful world.
Now this is not my first toe dip into contemporary blues rock. A couple years ago, I downloaded the Black Keys’ studio albums. I thought “Eh. This is okay. The guitar work is nice, the drums are punchy and simple. Vocals are appropriate. Lyrics, not very intelligent but they match the feel of the songs.” But the big problem was, I did not give one single d man about the personalities of the Black Keys. Now I get that Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney weren't out to make these detailed, nuanced character portraits like Fall Out Boy or Kanye or Say Anything, but just to make some fun blues rock. Which they did and do, but that's just not really my thing. I need personality in my music from the artist, and it feels like they're just putting no new twists on earlier blues and garage rock. Still good, just boring to me. Except “Brothers.” Love that album.
And I was really worried that that's what I was going to get when I listened to “Sound and Color” by Alabama Shakes I was going to have that same emotional disconnect between me and the band. Luckily, that is not the case whatsoever. While it took time to get there, “Sound and Color” is one of my favorite albums of the year. This album is a beautiful tribute to the blues, soul, and garage rock, while Brittany Howard and the rest of the Shakes forge a distinct identity and personality I can get totally invested in and obsess over.
Musically, the album is stellar. Where the Black Keys use pretty sparing instrumentation, the Shakes bring lots of colors (I’m sorry, but It’s not even a pun, just a word) to the mix. Some standout moments include “Shoegaze” which is a grooving little garage rock jam. It’s got some fun noodly guitar interplay (I mean every track has that, but it adds lots of fuzzy texture to the song) and a tight drum and bass groove and the drums break into a calypso beat near the middle that it changes back to from the rock beat, and the tension that builds in the chorus and the release is sublime. “This Feeling” is an acoustic jam that sounds so intimate, like the band are playing so close together around a campfire, the heavy white noise accompanying the band enhance the feel of the song, making it sound more homegrown. The little flutters of piano and organ and backing vocals and strings that pop in and out add gorgeous touches to each section of the song, the guitars and hand drums at the core of the song are really something for being so simple. Really every song is its own little personal sonic adventure that combines the smooth, rich coffee of soul music and the electric-charged mania of Red Bull of garage rock, and no song brings these worlds together like “The Greatest” because it switches from this high-speed “oom-pah” to a smooth 6/8 dance and then to something akin to what the Beatles were doing on the White Album, especially the harder rocking songs like “Birthday” or “Back in the USSR,” just really driving and pulsating.
The title track, which has a solid minute of haunting beautiful rich, Phoenician purple vibraphone, which conveys this longing, lingering feeling in me that wants those notes, those tones to resonate forever, but then the cruel foot pedal of the keyboard cuts them off, and then when the band comes in and Ms. Howard reinforces that feeling with some equally chilling lyrics about longing for more human connection and greater enjoyment of life and this breathy vocal delivery (and those crying violins near the end) sets the stage for a heartfelt, 100% sincere album.
The lyrics of “Sound and Color” are also (when written by the band themselves) some of the most descriptive and emotive I’ve reviewed thus far, relying on sheer force of feeling to hit you in the gut, instead of flaunting hyperbole and cleverness. If Say Anything’s words were a butterfly knife, the Shakes’ would be a baseball with a nail through it. Brittney Howard writes herself as someone who puts their whole being in relationships and dives in with a childlike innocence, but still is adult enough to admit her mistakes and accept reality. Take “Miss You” for example, probably my favorite song on the record for its loud/soft dynamics, which opens with the line “I’m gonna miss you and your Mickey Mouse tattoo and you’re leaving in your Honda Accord.” Already, I’m feeling the intimacy of this relationship and the pain in Ms. Howard’s voice when he leaves, and later on it’s revealed she drove him away in this telling stream-of-conscious line: “Well I do not love you because I'm bored. No, I was just saying them things when I was feeling a little unsure about myself and I'm sorry baby, that wasn't right” that has this pleading feel. That’s the best word I can use to describe the lyrics. The details enhance the delivery enhance the connection. The sum of all these factors are greater than each part.
It’s this gestalt mentality that really enhances “Sound and Color” for me. During my first couple listens, I was looking at each part the music under the microscope, instead of getting the big picture. It’s only when I took a step back, and looked at everything at once, the way the fuzzy, dirty production that compliments the instrumentation that changes from song to song and within each song. When I listened to both lyrical meaning AND Brittany’s delivery (which is powerful and yet vulnerable and chilling and warming, Brittany really is the star of the record) I feel so much more of a connection to these songs. If there are any duds on the record, they’re “Dunes” and “Gemini” but even “Gemini” isn’t really that bad a song, it just can’t hold up its six and a half minute length, and I could’ve used some stronger choruses to help make the songs more distinct. But I did really come to love “Sound and Color.” I just had to stop fighting. I won’t do that no more.
Best Songs: “Miss You,” “Sound and Color,” “The Greatest,” “Shoegaze,” “This Feeling.”
Worst Song: “Dunes”
Beauty Behind the Madness: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/69626/The-Weeknd-Beauty-Behind-the-Madness/
Traveller: http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/69715/Chris-Stapleton-Traveller/
1989:
To Pimp a Butterfly:
