Soulful roots run deep on Night Sweats’ debut

Music | August 19th, 2015

There’s a deep satisfaction I take in the fact that Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats’ self-titled debut comes courtesy of the revitalized Stax Records imprint, a label that historically pumped out album after soaked-brow album by the likes of Otis Redding, Booker T & the MGs and Sam & Dave until folding in the mid-’70s. The label’s 21st century reboot signifies the unassailable place that soul music has carved out within the canon of popular American music, evident in the recent successes of artists like Alabama Shakes, Leon Bridges, and St. Paul & the Broken Bones.

There are numerous sociological theories as to why pop culture cycles through phases of appreciation for “retro” or “vintage” artifacts, but if there is anything that music lovers have learned from the booms and busts of revival acts, it’s how to sniff out bullshit. And there is a fine, fine line between an artist passionately co-opting their biggest influences and one just making a slick mimicry of the past.

Rateliff and his crack band are most certainly the former. Like sponges, the septet have seemingly sopped up every good record they’ve heard in their lives and are hard-pressed to contain themselves. Even upon an initial spin of their debut, nearly every tone, lick and chord progression can be traced back to a safe assumption of origin. It’s hard not to hear both sides of Sam & Dave’s right-back-at-ya vocals in Rateliff’s throbbing-vein yawps, though it’s just as clear that he’s taken a few pages out of Marcus Mumford’s book in making his vocals the tornadic center of any song, though he better not think for one second that he’s fooling anyone in lifting the chorus chords of the Band’s gospel classic “The Weight” for his own barroom ballad, “Wasting Time.”

While it’s a good enough time to pick these songs apart in an effort to guess Rateliff’s desert island albums, the record undoubtedly stands on its own two legs. The song structures on display here are time-tested, and though their own familiarity may grease a listener’s ear, it’s Rateliff’s rumbling tent-revival conviction that ultimately drives the album home. Take, for example, the album’s lead single and crown jewel, “S.O.B.,” a straight-ahead 12-bar blues about the tormenting effects of alcoholism. Hell, legends like Son House and Robert Johnson perched their entire musical careers on those two elements, but that combination hasn’t yielded a Billboard-topping song in years, maybe decades. However, Rateliff, wielding his larger-than-life soul shout, turns the obscenity-anchored chorus into the strongest shot at the top spot to be heard in a long time.

It’s clear, however, that the Night Sweats didn’t blow all their effort on just that one song. This is an album for the album-lover, from start to finish. From the pounding get-go of “I Need Never Get Old,” to the final daydreamy notes of “Mellow Out,” the record is perfectly paced and flush with some of the catchiest songs this side of the Top 40, and it makes choosing a favorite an internal battle of hemming and hawing.

It may not be a particularly dense album, artistically, but taken at face value, Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats’ debut is a stunning leap from the gate, sure to go down as one of the most flat-out fun records of this year.

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