Alabama Shakes—Boys & Girls

Alabama Shakes had made their way into just about every music blog’s pet list long before Boys & Girls debuted on Tuesday. Despite praise from the likes of NPR and Jack White, I wrote them off as the latest addition to the list of next big things, thinking they would milk their 15 minutes before seeping into last year’s hype archive. In retrospect, though, that was an overstep. This record constitutes one the year’s most promising premieres from a young artist.

Hailing from Athens, Alabama (not the cool one), the group has come a long way from playing 45-minute cover sets in Birmingham music clubs to packed venues at South by Southwest. Lead singer and guitarist Brittany Howard sounds like rock n’ roll meets Ray Charles meets an interesting—humor me—Joss Stone. Her scratchy vocals are a warm blanket against the album’s harsh guitar and thrashy drums.

The album’s anticipated single “Hold On” starts off with steady drums and a lazy blues guitar. Howard’s soulful vocals pick up the beat, but subtly enough to maintain the cut’s easy drawl. The chorus barely creeps up on you (think of it as a quick aside from the first verse), but develops smoothly with the addition of a second rock guitar.

“I Found You” follows perfectly as somewhat of an answer to “Hold On”; The song tells the story of Howard finding her long-awaited lover. Male background vocals intelligently make it into the chorus to compliment Howard’s passionate refrains.

“Rise to the Sun” presents the album’s first sizeable move in a tougher rock direction. The cut’s animated verses drag into the hefty guitar solos and powerful drums, smoothing over the band’s trademark blues-rock binary. Howard ups her vocals once more to reveal another raspy layer of soulful control, adding to the song’s rough-around-the-edges feel.

I’m still unsure if Alabama Shakes deserve the hype they’ve accumulated, but does it even matter? No. This is a damn good album: it successfully fuses blues and rock and puts a new spin on the southern rock genre.

—Andrew Karim