The easiest takeaway from the Alabama Shakes debut album was that Brittany Howard burst into the scene with a God-sent voice. The critically acclaimed four-piece southern rock darlings from Athens, Alabama debuted Boys & Girls in 2012, a fairly formulaic, but intriguing album. It hinted at the Shakes’ potential, but it was apparent they were a promising new band baby steps shy of unearthing its desired sound. Following extensive touring and a three year span between albums, Sound & Color emerges as their powerhouse ascension into prominence.
The band, comprised of Zac Cockrell, Heath Fogg, Brittany Howard and Steve Johnson, has evolved from being a southern rock specific outfit, into a tight-knit unit capable of navigating genre jumps and time changes with ease. The music is an immovable force that is sometimes gentle, sometimes arena ready, but most importantly, it always costars harmoniously with Howard’s commanding vocals. She sings like a woman who has begun to realize the sheer power of her voice and is embracing the challenge of discovering how strong it can become.
The twinkling vibraphones in the intro of “Sound And Color” indicate that the band has laid layers on its roots without abandoning its original sound. “A new world hangs outside the window, beautiful and strange, it must be I’ve fallen awake,” Howard sings, hinting that this alternate reality full of only sound and color has been within reach, but now is a dream that has unknowingly become a reality.
The album picks up speed with “The Greatest,” a fast paced rocker that showcases the band’s depth. Howard begins by muttering, “Check this out,” then launches into the song, guitars blazing. “Well, I never meant to be the greatest, I only ever wanted to be your baby,” she sings, half joking, half deadly serious, as if being the greatest is merely an accidental byproduct of her songs.
The song serves as an undeniably fun and energetic comedic interlude bursting with bravado. It has three distinct styles: the introduction and ending speed past with guitar fills before detouring into a swing style ballad. Finally, it erupts into a climactic boardwalk-carnival style keyboard riff leading to a roaring bass line.
With a pained, dry, wheezing shriek indicative of a prolonged battle, Howard introduces “Don’t Wanna Fight,” a blues rocker that also incorporates psychedelia into the remaining mix of the album. “Gemini” is a slow scorcher with a “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” style guitar riff and a destructive drum and bass beat that feels fitting as an album closer.
Luckily, “Over My Head” follows as an in-album encore that leaves Howard contemplating the afterlife and the difference between religious faith and scientific certainty: “Science, they explain it to me, there’s no joy I can take with knowing what’s waiting. Here for now, but not for long, where will my mind slip away?”
This is the universally appealing album The Black Keys hoped to create with Turn Blue, but fell leagues short of accomplishing (“Weight Of Love” excepted). The archetypal laid back, guitar driven Blues/Southern Rock that made up a majority of Boys & Girls never feels forced on Sound And Color, while the psychedelic tapestry of sound expertly guides a genre bending masterpiece from the first dreamlike vibraphone notes, to the reverb suspended final chord.
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(Photo courtesy of ATO, Alabama Shakes)