Alabama Shakes may not necessarily look like your typical music greats, but if their debut album Boys and Girls is anything to go by it’s possible that’s what they’ll become. Though the lyrics get a bit frayed around the edges at times, you can’t fault the spirit of the music on the album.
Lead single and opening track Hold On, which you can listen to below, is an easy hit with a simple hook and a big chorus. The hyper fuzz addition in the second half lifts it to a new level excellence and it’ll be the kind of song that will be getting a fair bit of air time for many years to come.
Things get Motown on I Found You with a cool gospel-indie swirl, which is a theme that continues on Hang Loose with a flip to blues and country fusions and a great percussion mix.
There are faint traces of a lounge lizard in Rise to the Sun, which is propelled by a thumping chant chorus. Lead singer, Brittany Howard slows it down to a bluesy growl on You Ain’t Alone, and then to hushed highs on Going’ To The Party.
The pace steps up only slightly on the big band feel of Heartbreaker with more gruffallo tones and the addition of spiralling organs, but it comes back to a gospel crawl on the title track, Boys and Girls.
Be Mine brings the funk with more pitch perfect vocals. It starts out feeling a bit too slow this far into the album, but the song builds to a sped up screamer ending. However, it flows back to a slower pace again with I Ain’t the Same, which has got notes of sunshine to compensate for the lack of much in the way of significant action.
Both of which are abundant on final track, On Your Way, though, making it a contender with Hold On for the best song of the album title. Heath Fogg’s guitar is on fire throughout it all and Howard’s vocals crackle like an electric storm.
While it would have been nice to have a bit more drive and pace at times, Boys and Girls is still an impressive debut album, propelling the band into the limelight a little. If Alabama Shakes can continue to put their heart and soul into the music they produce then they could go on to be great over the years to come.
Alabama Shakes, Boys and Girls, album review: 4/5
