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‘Lfor a long time, I don’t see it,” says Brittany Howard, taking the stage to a standing ovation, sort of. Alabama Shakes back from break. It’s been 10 years since the Grammy-winning multi-Grammy soul-rock outfit from the south of England last toured the UK and 11 since their latest album – although a third is being replaced at the end of the year.
If there is any rust, it doesn’t show when he enters Rise to the Sun. It sets the tone for an evening in which the band can play songs that are as raw and dirty as they are raw and dirty.
Playing as a five-piece band – now minus original drummer Steve Johnson – plus three musicians, they play in front of a background that recalls the cloud screens of Windows 98, a stripped-back look for a band that doesn’t want to embellish. Howard, capable of a Curtis Mayfield-esque falsetto one minute and an Aretha Franklin-like rousing explosion the next, is enough to hold the stage, allowing him to rip gloriously on tracks like Hang Loose, while the band is all the more captivating when they run. On new single Time , they play a tight but daring exercise combining hard rock with throbbing psych, while Gimme All Your Love combines polished R&B with blistering beats.
One thing that’s inescapable is the hope that comes through in their music, from the wail-like sound of their 2012 Hold On, which they sang so movingly, to Howard singing “I’ve been through so much / but it feels good to know that I’m going to be alright” is a feeling that resonates on This Hearing. Not even a small part of the new American Dream politics — a slow-burn number that talks about abortion rights and gun violence — is founded on the belief that hard times can be overcome. Howard concludes by wishing affordable housing, love, and pets that last 35 years to the whole group, which has been going through the night so happily that you understand that the group has been missing a lot in their lives.
