Are perhaps some albums NOT coming out on Fridays? Even looking at next week, some of the ones with the most buzz about them a pop rock band, a folk rocker, a sort of classic rocker and an indie rock band. I just have not been seeing them as options on the site I use to show when new albums are coming out ( Uproxx). I do, in fact, enjoy folk rock and folk pop a lot, but I’m honestly not trying to avoid doing other genres. I’ll perhaps expand into older albums, as well, but for now, I want to really show how every week there’s typically at least one good new album released.Īs an aside, this is the third week of me doing this, and so far, I’ve done one folk pop album and two folk rock albums. This might not be a weekly thing, but I’ll try to do them as often as I can. This is “This Album Is Good,” a feature where I’ll try to spotlight a good new album every album release week (which I believe is Friday nowadays). And that is something a lot of people need right now.Today we look at the new album by Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Future. They aren’t inferior copies of anything, but they do give us something to smile about whilst forgetting our cares for a short while. What Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats do well is bring us songs which have a familiar feel. Ending the record is ‘Love Don’t’, which sounds like it’s straight out of the Motown catalogue and I can imagine it bringing the house down when played live. Overall, the record has a varied feel whilst still utterly sounding like the band we’ve come to know and love. I just continue to try to write from a place of hope.” That thread of hope is present in several songs, notably ‘I’m On Your Side’ which feels like a love letter to those firm friends you know you can rely on and they in turn on you “But if you ain’t alright just remember I’m on your side.” When I was writing the record we were in the middle of a pandemic and our future looked pretty bleak. Rateliff says of the record: “I look at the album overall as a big question. Writing and producing a record during a pandemic gave the band an opportunity to explore musical influences and observations of the world around them whilst also staying true to the sound of the band. Lyrically, Rateliff is on form for the times we live in, “I’m afraid that the weight of the world is catching up with you, I’m afraid to admit that it’s catching up to me too.” The song features everything we know the band for, rip-roaring vocals, a pounding rhythm section, and horns pulling the song through to the catchy chorus. Lead single ‘Survivor’ has one of the most fun videos I’ve seen for a while, and I’m glad they didn’t go down the route of a pandemic-related video. This is a record which deserves to be listened to through either a really good pair of headphones or a good speaker set-up to hear the layers of instrumentation present. Luke Mossman’s ripping guitar shines, and the horn section of Andreas Wild, Daniel Hardaway, and Jeff Dazey, well, whilst occasionally beautifully understated, when let loose they raise the songs to a foot stomping, hollering party. The musicianship from all of the players in The Night Sweats is as polished as ever, from the unswerving stability of Patrick Meese’s drums and Joseph Pope III’s bass, to Mark Shusterman’s organ and keys underpinning the songs. Of the 11 songs on the record, most are still firmly in the R&B/Roots section, but you get little forays into other styles with the jazzy soul sounds in ‘Love Me Till I’m Gone’ and the 60s quirky pop feels of ‘Something Ain’t Right’ (“Got to dig a lot of holes to get into something deep”). And whilst you won’t see them delving into the more folk-oriented solo work that Rateliff is known for, there is a more exploratory feeling across varying styles. Rateliff sings “I’ve got a feeling that I can heal, it’s in the willingness to be still” in ‘Oh, I’ which starts off simply with guitar and harmony vocals before adding layers of instrumentation. This record though does contain some of those more introspective moments, which long-time fans of Rateliff know well from his previous work.
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