Release Date: Feb 14, 2020
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Fantasy
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Buy And It's Still Alright from Amazon
Nathaniel Rateliff's latest solo full-length, And It's Still Alright, was seven years in the making, but well worth the wait. Steeped in heartache, pain and personal loss, this record is a slow burn that requires multiple listens in order to fully process and appreciate its artistry. From the finger-snapping, toe-tapping existential crisis of "What A Drag" and the exploration of despair in title track "And It's Still Alright" to the spaghetti western-imbibed, masterful "Tonight #2," which features the gentle and soulful violin playing ….
This time around Rateliff's stepped away from the filled-out sound of the Night Sweats. He's stripped things back for his new solo album And It's Still Alright, a product of a turbulent 2018 which saw him divorce his wife and lose a close friend in Richard Swift - the man who'd helped Rateliff find that Night Sweats sound, ultimately rejuvenating the near down-and-out troubadour. And while a life-event double-whammy of that standard would make even the strongest of us want to crawl into a hole, curl up, and never come out again, Rateliff's picked himself up and dusted himself down, channelling his emotions into a batch of songs that help him process the pain he's felt.
By the time Nathaniel Rateliff reinvented himself as the fiery retro-soul dynamo behind the 2015 hit "S. O. B.
N athaniel Rateliff had been around the houses before people started taking notice: an album apiece with Lost in the Flood and his own group, the Wheel, and two solo albums. Then, with nothing left at stake, he formed the Night Sweats and started recreating the sound of vintage southern soul, and people really did start taking notice: SOB, an irresistible drinking song about problem drinking, will doubtless haunt him for the rest of his life. With two hits albums behind him, he has returned to solo work, prompted first by his divorce then by the death of the Night Sweats' producer Richard Swift.
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