{"id":17026,"date":"2013-01-01T12:38:15","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T17:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=17026"},"modified":"2013-01-01T13:44:17","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T18:44:17","slug":"not-so-insta-reviews-alabama-shakes-and-tame-impala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/not-so-insta-reviews-alabama-shakes-and-tame-impala\/","title":{"rendered":"Not-So-Insta-Reviews<\/em>: Alabama Shakes and Tame Impala"},"content":{"rendered":"

In past years you could count on me for my patented Insta-Reviews<\/em>, frequently real-time reviews of the latest releases that I happened to pick up. The past year was not such a year. I was busy. I was bored. Late in the year I did pick up a couple of albums that inspired me to jot down my impressions: Alabama Shakes’ Boys & Girls<\/em> and Tame Impala’s Lonerism<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

ALABAMA SHAKES
\nBoys & Girls
\n(ATO)<\/strong>
\nAfter months of avoidance as my generation of relatively hip, middle-aged mouthbreathers raved over the debut album by Alabama Shakes I found myself confronted late one night with a performance by the band on PBS. I allowed myself to watch for a minute, thinking I\u2019d chuckle the righteous chuckle of the dismissive rock snob and then move on. But I was wrong. Rather than the mix of college-boy hoodoo, jive, hokum, and beer commercial bluesology that I expected, Alabama Shakes simply hunkered down on some elemental soul music chord progressions and then drove them the fuck home with some Clash-worthy forearm rock and singer Brittany Howard\u2019s Joe Cocker-esque histrionics. Any time I felt ready to reach into my deep bag of hang-ups I was thwarted. A song and a half into their performance I ceased attempting to find fault. Spittle had accumulated on my lips. The band\u2019s charms are presented without distraction on\u00a0Boys & Girls<\/em>. The performances are warm and direct. Howard\u2019s got killer pipes<\/em>, a term that usually induces a cringe but applies here. The slow burn of \u201cHold On\u201d doesn\u2019t take long to explode. \u201cHang Loose,\u201d my favorite song of the year, mixes a \u201cChain of Fools\u201d-style intro and hippie ethos. The cynic in me still ponders whether the band is an indie-rock flipside to Sam Phillips\u2019 \u2018If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel\u2026\u201d dream, but hell, this album is the answers to my prayers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

TAME IMPALA
\nLonerism
\n(Modular)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australian band Tame Impala\u2019s 2010 debut album, Innerspeaker<\/em>, mined the best bits of the Nazz\u2019 \u201cOpen My Eyes,\u201d leaving out the flowery middle eight section. The stomping fuzz riffs drilled straight into my brain. I dug that feeling. The band\u2019s follow-up, Lonerism<\/em>, attempts to stretch from its third-generation psychedelia with a gentler, lyrical approach. This approach works best on songs like \u201cBe Above It,\u201d \u201cMind Mischief,\u201d and \u201cKeep on Lying,\u201d which sound like the sylvan folk of Midlake as produced by the Chemical Brothers. Other times, as on \u201cApocalypse Dream\u201d and \u201cMusic to Walk Home By,\u201d I feel like I\u2019m listening to one of those George Harrison-Jeff Lynne collaborations from the 1980s, the ones I\u2019d spin a couple of times, decide were \u201cbetter than Gone Troppo<\/em>,\u201d and never spin again. This aspect of Tame Impala\u2019s growth is not as satisfying as having my brain drilled by the best bits of a Nazz song.\u00a0Where does one go after the first rush of psychedelia? Tame Impala attempts to move into the light, but sometimes it \u201cFeels Like We Only Go Backwards,\u201d as the band\u2019s take on the Verve is entitled. When in doubt, when the band makes its third album, may I suggest a little skull-piercing fuzz guitar?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In past years you could count on me for my patented Insta-Reviews, frequently real-time reviews of the latest releases that I happened to pick up. The past year was not such a year. I was busy. I was bored. Late in the year I did pick up a couple of albums that inspired me to […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[65],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}