Rocktrospectiva: The Authentically Weird "Sound & Color" Turns 10

Released on 17 April 2015, "Sound & Color" the second studio album by US band Alabama Shakes, the album spawned four singles "Don't Wanna Fight", "Gimme All Your Love", "Future People" & "Sound & Color". The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 in the U.S., giving the band their first chart-topper; globally, the album hit the top ten in Australia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. It was also a critical success and was nominated six Grammy Awards.

 

Alabama Shakes began recording their second album in late 2013. The group listened to anything and everything for influence, without regard for its public reception in the end. They spent over a year in the studio, with no clear end-goal, as they had not written any new songs due to their exhaustive touring schedule. Sound & Color is steeped in several different genres, touching on shoegaze to bands such as MC5.

 

Sound & Color is rooted in Southern rock and soul music  It has also been noted for making roots rock "a surprise again". Yet despite being rooted in these genres, Sound & Color includes some of the quartet's most eclectic and experimental songs to date. It features sounds of country, blues, funk, garage punk, punk rock, swamp rock, and talking blues. Its songs have been compared to musicians like Erykah Badu and Curtis Mayfield and bands like MC5 and the Strokes.

 

Tracks such as "Guess Who" explores jazz sounds. "The Greatest" takes on cowpunk like that of the Meat Puppets, as well as hardcore punk, new wave, proto-punk, and  rock and roll. A made out of the fusion of grunge and funk on "Shoegaze". Both songs have also been noted as garage rock.

 

Sound & Color digs its heels into more psychedelia-based stylings, from the "slow-burning" space rock of "Dunes" to the "celestial" psychedelic funk of "Future People". "Gemini", the record's longest song, changes between "smooth R&B and stoner-desert rock"

 

The album received positive reviews, some called the record a "deliberately weird record, but authentically weird; it's chaotic yet cohesive, full of sound, colour and unshakable vision.

 

Sound & Color Track List: 

 

1. Sound & Color 

2. Don't Wanna Fight

3. Dunes

4. Future People

5. Gimme All Your Love

6. This Feeling

7. Guess Who

8. The Greatest

9. Shoegaze

10. Miss You

11. Gemini

12. Over My Head