{"id":1187597,"date":"2026-09-05T08:54:18","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:54:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1187597\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T08:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T08:54:18","slug":"alabama-shakes-i-must-be-dreaming-album-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1187597\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Shakes: I Must Be Dreaming Album Review"},"content":{"rendered":"

If there\u2019s a downside to putting your Grammy-winning band on hiatus for 11 years only to drop two critically<\/a> acclaimed<\/a> solo albums and win a Grammy on your own, it might be that, when you finally announce your band\u2019s long-awaited comeback, people could be tempted to ask a blunt question: Why?<\/p>\n

Even if you consider 2012\u2019s Boys & Girls<\/a> a Perfect 10, even if you programmed your daily alarm clock to play the opening vibraphone chimes from 2015\u2019s Sound & Color<\/a> (just me?), you could accept that Alabama Shakes<\/a> was something of a chrysalis for Brittany Howard<\/a>, its undisputed power engine. Her generationally soulful voice, tectonic in its capacity to cleave earth or shift subtly underfoot, hardly depended on her bandmates to be heard\u2014mere months after Sound & Color dropped, Howard released a thrashing rock\u2019n\u2019roll record under the name Thunderbitch, and she produced some of the best songs<\/a> of her career on her 2019 solo debut, Jaime<\/a>. Hearing that the Shakes were returning was like hearing that the local scoop shop was bringing back your favorite flavor after you\u2019d spent years sampling artisanal sorbets. The old formula was classic\u2014would it taste as good now?<\/p>\n

No score yet, be the first to add.<\/p>\n

I Must Be Dreaming, the first new album from Alabama Shakes in more than a decade, revives what made the band so delectable in the 2010s: retro-soul hooks sent through lo-fi filters, blistering blues basslines, and a half-tab of psychedelia trip-sat by Howard\u2019s unimpeachable voice, which could sing an end-user license agreement. Though much of I Must Be Dreaming reintroduces Alabama Shakes as a band who can shake off the dust and rock out to the personal and political with equal verve, it does tend to hide in the safety of its more cookie-cutter moments.<\/p>\n

In a recent interview with Vulture<\/a>, critic Craig Jenkins asked Howard why Alabama Shakes didn\u2019t try to ride out their hot streak to the end of the 2010s. \u201cWell, everybody wants different things in life,\u201d Howard replied. \u201cSome people want to be the best. Some people want the most. I don\u2019t think that was really our target or trajectory. We\u2019re friends. We like making music. We like playing shows. It was really kind of that simple.\u201d Simple, in the hands of Alabama Shakes, can be winning. Everyone knows they can knock out fiery hits like \u201cAnother Life,\u201d but longtime fans will appreciate the synergy between Howard, bassist Zac Cockrell, and guitarist Heath Fogg (drummer Steven William Johnson is no longer working with them) as evidenced on lower-stakes songs where the bandmates sound more like equals getting a groove on. Ballads like \u201cGarden\u201d or \u201cFriends,\u201d a playful garage-rock song with lyrics that feel like a sequel to \u201cBoys & Girls,\u201d feel like a rewarding return to this mode.<\/p>\n

Heartache has been a recurring theme for Howard, so it\u2019s charming to hear a positive spin on queer romance in the album\u2019s love songs, even if some feel as soporific as they are sweet. You could snooze through \u201cEasy,\u201d and a spaced-out guitar shredfest doesn\u2019t really rouse \u201cTime\u201d; \u201cHow Love\u2019s Supposed to Go,\u201d with its rattled-off verses and funky bassline, captures the ups and downs of affection with more groovy dynamism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If there\u2019s a downside to putting your Grammy-winning band on hiatus for 11 years only to drop two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1187598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3936],"tags":[31104,77,269,16,15,4715],"class_list":["post-1187597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-albums","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-web"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117217595806934363","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1187598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}