Basements Best: ​Alabama Shakes move outward, upward on “Sound & Color”

Though its preceded by the title track, Alabama Shakes’ sophomore album, “Sound & Color,” doesn’t truly begin until about the 40-second mark of “Don’t Wanna Fight.” Steamrolling frontwoman Brittany Howard finds an open spot in the thistle of razorwire guitars and swaggering drums and emits a lemon-tart yowl, sucking all the air out of the room. For just a moment, the world pauses.

She exhales, spitting out the pounding backbeat and humbucked guitars with gale force. If one were looking for an analogue of this attack and release on the Shakes’ 2012 debut, “Boys & Girls,” they’d likely find it in the last big “WAIT” of their two-chord smash, “Hold On.”

If there’s any one thing to attribute Alabama Shakes’ success to, it’s this balance between gentle restraint and all-hell eruption. It can be heard in the dichotomy of Howard’s birdlike cooing and lung-scraping shrieks just as well as the arrangements’ flip-flopping between bleeding-hearted ballads and barreling blues stompers. This back-and-forth gave the bare-bones “Boys & Girls” its urgency at the expense of subtlety – a transaction that clearly paid off – but it was clear that another album of tug o’ war would serve neither the band nor its fans as well.

In recent interviews Howard has confided that, though its debut has its merits, “Sound & Color” is the record that the band had always wanted to make. For a group facing such immediate success, its decision to delay a follow-up until the material was ripe is evident in every note, and certainly worth the three-year wait. Listening to the piecemeal guitar interplay of the ground-splitting “Future People” or the brickwall vocal harmonies of “Dunes,” it’s clear that these are thoroughly composed for ultimate impact.

Taking on the midwife role in making “Sound & Color” all that the band had dreamt is none other than Blake Mills, producer and guitar extraordinaire. Without sticking his neck out too far, Mills’ direction makes possible the record’s molasses density, pushing the Shakes’ garage mentality to its limits. At these boundaries, the band winningly incorporates wider instrumentation and genre appropriation, as the orchestral sweeps of the jazzy “Guess Who” abut the CBGB scuzz of the following “The Greatest.”

Three years of contemplation have just as well expanded the worldview of Howard (she’d never seen much of America outside of Alabama until the group’s “Boys & Girls” -- supporting tour), which is evident in her thoughtful lyricism. While there’s still enough heartbreak and bitterness to go around, “Sound & Color” is a more personal record for Howard as she finds her place in the world, which especially clear in lyrics like “loving so deeply I feel it through all my past lives” on the pensive closer “Over My Head.”

Expanding on all that made “Boys & Girls” an instant classic, Alabama Shakes have made a sequel that shows improvement and refinement on every level.

Notable tracks: "Dunes," "Future People" and "Over My Head"

96.3 KNDS Suggests

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“The Chase” – Future Islands
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05rcxx3
Recorded live during their recent visit to London’s famed Abbey Road studios and cut directly to vinyl, Future Islands’ RSD release is certainly the most exclusive of the year; a single copy was pressed and sold at Seismic Records in Warwickshire, England. Luckily for the rest of the world, the synth-poppers debuted it on BBC and have begun working it into their live sets.

“Bust No Moves” – Run the Jewels ft. SL Jones

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“Two Scenes” – San Fermin
http://www.npr.org/2015/04/12/398114825/first-listen-san-fermin-jackrabbit#playlist
Pummeling and soaring with a seismic bombast, this opera-within-an-opera aptly weaves together two distinct movements into a single cacophony.

“Can’t Keep Checking My Phone” – Unknown Mortal Orchestra
https://soundcloud.com/jagjaguwar/unknown-mortal-orchestra-cant-keep-checking-my-phone
Nevermind the inane lyrics (“We eat crickets in the future”; “Traffic lights might reverse my love”); if you’re trying to think past the delectable jungle of handclaps and tambourine shimmies, you’re beyond help.