Alabama Shakes’ genuine album meets high expectations

After building up expectations and hype comparable to the size of Lookout Mountain, Alabama Shakes’ debut album, Boys & Girls, kindly asks fans to raise the bar a little higher next time… Boys & Girls

Alabama Shakes

ATO Records

Grade: A-

Rocks like: If Adele grew up listening to Otis Redding, Exile on Main St.-era Rolling Stones

After building up expectations and hype comparable to the size of Lookout Mountain, Alabama Shakes’ debut album, Boys & Girls, kindly asks fans to raise the bar a little higher next time.

Singer and guitarist Brittany Howard’s dynamic and engulfing voice powers the Athens, Ala., quartet. Pick any of the great soul or blues singers — Howard deserves a shared billing with any of them.

Yet as Boys & Girls shows, Howard and her band do not settle for imitation.

The lead vocalist’s particular singing cadence and clear emotional connection to the song sells the heart-wrenching “I Found You.”

“If it is not the real deal then I don’t know it,” she sings while pleading the case for saving a relationship.

“Be Mine” explores an attitude established by the powerful drumming before exploding into a pounding finish that would make Wilson Pickett blush.

With an addictively simple guitar hook reminiscent of Tracy Chapman’s “Give Me One Reason,” the album’s opening track, “Hold On,” is destined for pop success.

The album’s two space-filling tracks, “Hang Loose” and “Goin’ To the Party,” finish quickly enough not to distract from the stellar songs surrounding them.

The screaming organ on the track “Heartbreaker” will undoubtedly be featured on numerous angry, post-breakup mixes.

The album closes with “On Your Way,” a track that could easily have slipped into a Kings of Leon-type mediocrity, but Howard’s soothing voice simply refuses the possibility.

With its album ending slightly short of 40 minutes, Alabama Shakes keeps the jams tight — at least by Southern standards — and the tracks enjoyable and not tiresome.

The members of Alabama Shakes do not look interchangeable for J. Crew models, nor do they attempt to record in log cabins to capture some forgotten sound (See: Dawes). The band grew up an hour away from the heart of Southern soul in Muscle Shoals, Ala., and formed in high school over a shared obsession with the genre.

In a music scene filled with superficiality, this band’s genuineness will encourage many newfound fans to root for them. Even if, like the Black Keys before it, the group needs to sell its songs through Zales commercials — as it did during the 2011 holiday season with the Otis Redding-inspired song “You Ain’t Alone.”

The hype surrounding the band stems from its strong reputation for outstanding live performances and a well-received self-titled EP, released in late 2011.

Based off Boys & Girls, the accolade is well-deserved. And the idea of Alabama Shakes sounding even better live is delightfully frightening.