Alabama Shakes - I Must Be Dreaming
Where have you been, locas?
It’s hard to believe that Alabama Shakes’ last album came out a whole eleven years ago. Sound & Color brought such an incredible energy and hope at the time, and it’s no coincidence that the album remains one of my favorite records of the 2010s. Since then, we’ve been watching the magnificent Brittany Howard everywhere in so many different ways, and now, finally, we have a new studio album from the band, I Must Be Dreaming.
It’s a 48-minute collection of dreamy blues, psychedelic soul and rock, where the band addresses political themes but takes them in a slightly different direction. While everyone around us mostly seems to feel either angry or scared right now, Alabama Shakes approach the situation from a more soothing side, offering us a safe space for quiet reflection and cozy moments spent thinking about the good things we have in the present and the future we can build for ourselves. It gives you this sense of hope, and the feeling that maybe everything is not yet completely hopeless.
Of course, a lot of it is a commentary on Donald Trump’s America and his inhumane rhetoric. But instead of fighting all of that with more anger, they decided to push the feeling of love — talking about the importance of us, as a community, sticking together, respecting others, loving others, and believing in something better.
I don’t even know if I need to talk about the fact that Alabama Shakes have also given us absolutely stellar production and mind-blowing, incredible instrumentals, because for them, that’s basically the norm. But honestly, there haven’t been that many records this year that make you want to simply get lost in the music this much.
Take one of the highlights of the album, “Another Life”, where the guitars and vocals are simply out of this world. Tracks like “Garden”, “Easy”, “Waist Deep”, “Time”, and “Tied to You” completely wrap you in their loungey but memorable arrangements while offering some genuinely deep and conscious lyrics.
The record sounds incredibly rich, moving from dreamy sounds into funkier ones while remaining absolutely consistent throughout. But probably the biggest magic and achievement of this album is how much calm it gives you. Because that’s exactly what Alabama Shakes were trying to achieve here.
“I Feel Hope Coming”, Brittany Howard says on one of the songs on this album, and you’d be a fool not to agree with her.
8.1/10
