The People’s Temple: “Sons of Stone”

The music of The People’s Temple exists solely in the garage– specifically, a 1960s garage– so I reckon it’s what we’d have to call a revivalist rock and roll record. I’ll say this about it, though: Sons of Stone is no museum piece. This young band from Lansing is studiously devoted to the sounds of a bygone era, not for the purpose of replicating it, but for using it as a set of building blocks; they’re mastering their craft here, and while the record is born of a certain youthful brashness and naivete, there are some moments of a vision that is already startlingly bold and unique. They’re building toward something big, and Sons of Stone is an unshakably sturdy foundation.

You can still see their scaffolding quite clearly, which is actually a big part of what makes this debut such a thrilling and special record. The People’s Temple sound like a band piledriving through their vinyl collection and picking and choosing the stuff they like; they’re in the process of synthesizing it, and what they have right now isn’t a totally original voice so much as an entire world of possibilities. In that sense they remind me a bit of a young Arctic Monkeys; actually, there are some strongly Arctic moments here, be it in the stoner haze that covers this album like a thick fog– recalling the druggy pull of the Humbug album– or in the way the singer cops a bit of Alex Turner’s snark from time to time. There are also heavy doses of the Stones, of course, both in the riffage and the swagger but, again, in the singer’s vocal affectations as well. There are strong hints of early Who records– before they went artsy, back when they were just a thundering R&B band. And there is the strongest remnant of 60s garage rock I’ve heard since Green Day decided to go Foxboro Hottubbing.

There is also quite a bit of echo and reverb, which is sure to be the album’s most divisive feature. I think it works, and I say that as someone who typically thinks such things don’t work well at all. But this band has the songs and the instincts to thrive in the sonic fog, as it were.  The production masks the particulars of the lyrics and even some of the instruments, giving the whole thing a sort of psychedelic swirl, but there are some booming rhythms and driving, energetic melodies that keep things moving even under all the haze. They have, rather impressively, mastered the sound of 60s garage on an almost molecular level; they know how to peg the atmospherics but also how to transcend mere formalism with brash energy and a kind of teenage mayhem.

I’ll say this for them, as well. No band interested in being a mere revivalist act would ever begin an album as they do here. The title song opens with a ringing guitar riff– one of the catchiest things I’ve heard this year– and then drums that sound like claps of thunder. It’s powerfully loud and almost anthemic, but it’s also rather slow, tempo-wise, to say nothing of strange in its psychedelic pull and, at five minutes, rather long for an album that generally relies on quick-and-easy. It’s an ambitious opening for such a young band, in other words, but the song has a dark, hypnotic undertow that pulls you in, and it’s maybe the best example here of them building something rather distinct from a set of spare parts.

That said, they also excel at banging out lighting-quick pop songs, packaged as garage bashing and thumping. “Axe Man” is an incredible little nugget of a song, an almost surf-sounding song that again recalls The Who at their most youthful and energetic. It’s an exhilaratingly ragged performance that sounds like it was tossed off in just minutes, yet it’s hard to believe a hook so massive could be the result of anything save for careful craft. “Where You Gonna Go,” meanwhile, takes the band’s most obviously Stonesy moments and transplants them into what I guess I’d call a garage ballad; it almost sounds like a soul song, actually, or at lest a very open-hearted pop song with a warm organ sound highlighting the backdrop. “Never Really (Saw Me Comin’ Round)” is sort of like it’s polar opposite, a creepy and menacing nocturnal groove that shows how affecting this band can be when they turn down the volume a bit.

The album ends with a dark and dramatic finale called “The Surf,” but the meat of this album– or at least, what strings together these more fully-formed songs– are the short, tossed-off rock and roll numbers that feel like they were born of in-studio jamming, held together by riffs and momentum more than a clear compositional focus. And that’s fine; they pull it off well, and the songs are addictive in their energy even if it takes a few spins to distinguish these tracks from one another. Plus, they know how to mix things up a bit by introducing some crackling tape hiss here, a jangling tambourine there– little details, to be sure, but amidst the mess and the murk they stand out and make the album feel like a true sensualist’s pleasure.

As for the lyrics, I’d mostly be guessing, quite honestly. I will say that the very name of this band comes from a cult and many of the snatches of lyrics I hear seem to work with the same kind of language. This isn’t another example of a rock band romanticizing the occult, however; if anything, I think they’re using that imagery to address themes of manipulation, deception, and control, perhaps in a more relational context. If that is indeed the case, we can call it another example of this exciting young band turning the past into something oddly their own.

Josh Garrels: “Love & War & The Sea In Between”

My friend Matt Conner asked me to say something worthwhile about the new Josh Garrels album, and I did my best to oblige. I like the album a great deal, I am somewhat surprised to say; it’s a rather weighty thing, at 18 songs in length, and its conception is a little on the self-serious side, but, shockingly, pretty much all of it works. It’s a striking listen, both one of the year’s most ambitious endeavors and one of its most successful.

Gillian Welch: “The Harrow and the Harvest”

Arriving eight years after her last record, the new Gillian Welch LP turns out to be totally worth the wait. The Harrow and the Harvest is an album that stands proudly, boldly, with her best work– Time (The Revelator) is the only one to equal and perhaps surpass it– which means, basically, that it’s hovering somewhere in the vicinity of masterpiece status. My full review is posted at CT.

Beyonce: “4″

There was an article posted, a week or so before the release of Beyonce’s new LP, that speculated as to whether 4 might end up being– in commercial terms– a “dud.” I read the article with equal parts bemusement and bewilderment, not because I particularly care how well the album sells but because, just a couple of weeks prior, listening to the album’s first single, “1+1,” I couldn’t help but feel like I was hearing what would have been a star-making vocal performance– were Beyonce not already a star, of course. Listening again, in the context of the full album, I’m sticking by my guns. It’s a knockout feat of soulful vocal acrobatics that stands quite easily, I think, as Beyonce’s finest diva moment on record. Will it sell? Perhaps, perhaps not, but I recoil at the notion that anything so graceful and achingly human could ever be termed a “dud.”

I suppose I understand the point, though. 4 is at once the best album Beyonce has ever recorded– by a wide margin, really– and a record so low-key and classicist in its formation that it’s probably fair to call it her least commercial effort to date. That’s not to say it’s short on dynamite singles. There’s nothing here that I suspect will light the charts the way “Single Ladies” or “Halo” did, but the songs are still quite compact and hooky, and, in the case of “1+1,” masterful in a way Beyonce’s never been before. Singles notwithstanding, though, the album plays a bit like an old-fashioned song cycle, torch songs and breakup tunes (compelling enough to make me wonder if someone ought call Jay-Z and make sure things are okay at home) that ultimately give way to catharsis and, in the end, celebration. The record is deliberate and classicist in its feel, and gives the distinct impression that it’s meant to be played in sequence. It’s a largely melancholy affair, as well, and all of these things point to it being a little old-fashioned, if not outright uncommercial.

But whatever. It’s a sound that suits her well. To my ears, Beyonce has never sounded more comfortable in her own skin, more graceful and in-element as a soul singer; indeed, where past albums have celebrated her standing as the hip queen of R&B, this one is more or less straight-up soul, one diva moment after another and plenty of ballads that showcase a singer who is more content than ever to play with her syllables and pour every bit of the humanity in her voice into every lyric. A big part of her new level of comfort comes from the fact that these songs are said to be inspired by a list of the artists who move her most; on that front, 4 proves Beyonce to be an artist of versatility and good taste. “1+1″ is, again, the highlight– a Prince guitar-ballad homage that falls somewhere between “Purple Rain” and “The Beautiful Ones”– but there’s good stuff abounding, particularly the soulful belting of “I Still Care” (an old-fashioned ballad with 80s production flourishes, a trick used more than once here, and to surprisingly good effect) and the power-ballad bombast of “Best Thing I Never Had,” a kiss-off so dramatically cathartic it’s a shoe-in for a future episode of Glee. (I mean that in a good way, though.)

These aching, classically-inclined soul numbers make up the album’s heart, and most of its running time, and they take on a sort of loose song-cycle approach; the record opens with raw desire and romance and, by the second song, is wallowing in sadness and heartache. The turning point is a song called “Party,” a vaguely retro, hip-hop-flavored R&B cut that offers a tentative note of defiance– or at least the possibility of healing– in the form of a night out at the club. The songs that follow are a little more upbeat, and as a fulcrum that’s thematically consistent with the rest of the album, “Party” makes sense. As a song, though, it’s a misstep, partly because the hook is just flat, and partly because what could have been a glorious return to form for Andre 3000 is largely wasted in a by-the-numbers cameo appearance. Other experiments pay off much better, though; the album ends with a song called “Girls (Run the World),” the very title of which indicates the note of triumph on which Beyonce ends the cycle. What makes it memorable, though– if a touch out of place on what is otherwise a more deliberate and measured album– is the production from Diplo, who both conjures Beyonce’s own Fela Kuti fixation and points to previously unimagined possibilities of Beyonce as an edgier R&B/dance artist on the level of Santigold or M.I.A.

Whether she chooses to keep experimenting or not, though, 4 is something she can be proud of. It’s an album that blends influences and inspirations into something seamless, and it’s a song cycle that pulls heartstrings without being overbearing. Mostly, though, it’s just a terrific soul album, and a platform for a powerhouse singer who is only now, it seems, beginning to explore the full range of what she’s capable of.

Film Break: “Cars 2″

I reviewed the latest from Team Pixar for CT; you can read my take here. Wish I could say that Cars 2 was yet another addition to Pixar’s rather incredible winning streak, but I’m afraid this is squarely a bottom-tier Pixar offering, down with A Bug’s Life and the first Cars. I did like it more than most critics seem to, though– right now, if forced to choose, I would maybe just barely prefer it to the first one– and it definitely offers its share of pleasures, even if it is really nothing more than a good, adequate cartoon.

Jill Scott: “The Light of the Sun”

Jill Scott’s The Light of the Sun is a very good record, borne of a very bad couple of years. You probably know exactly what I’m talking about here; certainly, Scott is not the first artist to document a period of grief and pain, to pull from the wreckage something that speaks to beauty and grace. I hear tell of one guy who had his heart broken, then locked himself in a wooded cabin to record his blood-letting songs of heartache and desolation. Scott went a different route, though; on the heels of a divorce, a brief love affair that hit the rocks but left her a son, and some brief excursions into acting, Scott comes roaring back into action with what feels, for all the world, like a classic R&B album. The Light of the Sun is more than a document of frayed nerves. It’s also a very professional record, informed by very personal sensibilities, and it already feels timeless.

Scott’s gifts are varied– she did a series of albums called Words and Sounds, hinting at her own dual love of music and poetry– and this, more than anything she’s yet done, is an album of elegant fusion. Scott is bold about basing her songs in classic soul tropes, but equally unafraid to dress them in modern apparel. She has a penchant for smooth soul on the Philly tip, but, like her hometown brothers in the Roots crew, she also has hip-hop in her blood, and again, it’s old-school and steely modern-day in equal measure; to that end, this is the most street record of her career. And in terms of what she’s doing vocally, Scott is simply without peer. Her renown is as an artist who eloquently eases from singing into spoken word and even rap, and her cadence on this record is a thing of effortless grace. That said, she is, if anything, undervalued as a straight-up soul singer, and a lot of the songs on this album are striking for the sheer, simple beauty of her performance.

The Light of the Sun is an album that ought appeal in equal measure to contemporary R&B fans but also to those who prefer the retro chic of the Soulaquarian aesthetic, and, though it has already yielded some significant radio success, it also feels like an album in a more classic sense, telling a story or at least tracing a theme. It’s all about the road to empowerment, I think, and it plays like a catalog of emotions that one might conjure in the face of a heartbreaking couple of years. There are sadness and anger, humility and aggrandizing pomp. Scott is a pilgrim on this road, and she plays in each mode with matter-of-fact honesty. For all of this, though, the record begins with a call for big-picture perspective. “Blessed” is soul music in the purest and best sense of the term– i.e., it is actually good for the soul– and its fluttering harps and strings help it go down all the easier. Scott chronicles the blessings in her life, and looks for grace in all things even as she refuses to get sappy. Her vocal is a rhythmic wonder, totally in the pocket and beat-savvy. The song is followed by the album’s hot first single, a duet with Anthony Hamilton called “So in Love.” It’s a ravishing number, sexy in the most elegant way, and though it, too, comes with a bit of a retro flair, it’s totally dancefloor-ready.

Scott can bring the swagger, but she also brings the hard-won wisdom that inspired this album in the first place. The album is both seductive and spiritual, and its more introspective moments are among its most moving. There is a terrific R&B slow jam– reminding me a little of Big Boi’s song “Hustle Blood,” of all things– called “So Gone,” a sexual song that expresses both longing and regret and ends up echoing the biblical teaching about the irresistible impulses of the flesh: “Why does my body ignore what my mind says?” she sings in the midst of a sordid tryst, and she isn’t judgmental so much as she is simply disappointed in herself. The song is followed– and not by accident, I wouldn’t think– by a prayer for divine intervention. “Hear My Call” is straight modern gospel, an inspirational ballad that soars atop strings and a dynamite vocal from Scott. It could almost pass for Christian pop, really, but in the context of this record’s soul journey, it rings true.

That’s especially the case given how seamlessly Scott pulls her different gifts and passions together here, and how steadily she pushes her art forward; there’s no mistaking this for anything other than a profoundly heartfelt and personal expression of self, the professional production and steely beats notwithstanding. And she does push herself here; album highlight “La BOOM Vent Suite” is a magnificent nine-minute, three-part arrangement that traces a journey from defiance into something a bit more measured and wise. The seamlessness of the arrangement is a wonder to behold, moving as it does from straight funk into something closer to jazz, and Scott is, once again, a showstopper. What makes it the best thing here, though, is simply that it’s such a an ass-shaking good time, particularly in the sing-along first movement. Honorable second place goes to a tune called “All Cried Out,” a kind of collision between old-school soul and hip-hop that would surely make ?uesto and the Roots crew proud; thing is, I can’t imagine ?uestlove ever allowing his band to do anything as cheerfully old-timey and fun as this song’s mash-up of ragtime piano and finger-popping percussion from human beatbox Doug E. Fresh. It could have been a novelty, but it’s not, simply because the emotions sink their hooks in so deep.

Scott ends the album purposefully, and with just as much heat as she begins it; “Womanifesto” is simply a dazzling spoken-word piece, a poem that summarizes the album’s journey and portrays the singer (and all women) as proud, but not ignorant of the humbling truths learned here; as earthy, spiritual, sexual, wise, and prone to both great success and great mistakes. Money quote: “I’m a motherf*cking G!” (Yes, she blurs it out on the album.) “I am all of this– and, indeed, the shit.” Yeah you are, Jill Scott. After that, it’s the warmth of a stand-up bass and some light drum-kit work, plus an R&B pulse and gospel swells, in a slam-bang finishing number called “Rolling Hills,” an empowering and utterly seductive song that is, I think, the most potent vocal Scott has on the whole record. It is a very good ending for a very good album– a new high watermark for Jill Scott, in fact– and though it may have been borne of a rough couple of years, it exhibits beauty and wisdom that will, I think, shine for a good long while.

Robert Stillman: “Machine’s Song”

I wouldn’t quite call it Steampunk Folk music, exactly, though that’s really not far off. I guess the best way to describe Robert Stillman’s music– and the music of Machine’s Song in particular– is by using his own words. Stillman refers to his work as the sound of the Archaic Future, really a pretty good descriptor of music that makes a deliberate look over the shoulder to a world it sees through the tint of sepia– a world that never quite existed, though, at least not as it’s rendered here, and points toward a certain avant futurism as much as it does the glow of nostalgia.

I give a lot of credit to Stillman right off the top, for what he’s doing here is something that sidesteps almost any other “roots music” out there today by revealing a quite different– but no less valid– understanding of what that term really means. Stillman is a Brit who carries a dogged obsession with the notion of Americana, but his definition of said music goes past Dylan, past even country music and the blues, and instead embraces a pre-jazz conception of folk and parlor music that seems to me to be largely ignored these days. Jolie Holland embraced it a bit on her lovely album Springtime Can Kill You, for instance, but her interest was more in modest dance tunes and ballads. Stillman conceives of this music as something grander, and what he does on Machine’s Song is amazingly full-blooded considering exactly how Stillman went about making it.

Specifically, Stillman is an instrumental composer who works a lot in the one-man-band idiom, playing the piano with his hands and drums with his feet; that’s how this song cycle was written and how the basics of it were recorded, before the artist fleshed it out with all the appropriate bells and whistles (literally). The music has a lot of the creaky, self-sustained spontaneity that its origins would suggest, and yet what renders this an immensely evocative and sublime listen is that the mechanics of it are never really the focus. One does not listen and think only about how Stillman made it; one things almost entirely of the compositions themselves, and of the myriad ideas that they suggest, rather shrewdly.

It’s an album that rather neatly turns nostalgia on its head, and considers the ideals of an antiquated America in a different light. To that end, Stillman structures Machine’s Song in a way that invites contemplative juxtaposition on the part of the listener; a good chunk of this eight-song sequence is devoted to pairs, first a Song (in the best and fullest sense) and then a corresponding Collage, sequenced in just that way. I am not normally one for “sound collages,” I confess, but here Stillman ties these more experimental pieces so closely to the notion of Song itself that I feel they’re more extensions of the more conventional bits. The Collage follows the Song and deconstructs it, without losing grip of its important themes and suggested images. And so we have a song like “Broadwar,” sort of a tipsy but determined gait that moves with purpose and a sense of grandeur (think of, say, an Aaron Copeland song), followed by “Broadwar Retreat,” which gradually takes apart the preceding song’s theme and uses horns and percussion to simulate the mechanics of a train. This may, indeed, be the machine’s song– a sound of loneliness to further muddle the mixed emotions of the tune that came before it. (Perhaps also an on-its-head spin of the very American fascination with trains, travel, and the freedom to just up and go.)

And indeed, the emotions here are deep, rich, and sublimely evocative; Stillman brings to this work not just the hiss of the locomotive but also, say, fairground organs and even some moments that suggest dance tunes, all of it suggesting an idyllic world– only, not really. It’s a melancholy work, in many respects, recalling, perhaps, the work of Van Dyke Parks at his most inward-gazing (and divorced of any sun-kissed Wilson-isms), or even of the sinister, arcane sounds invoked on some of Tom Waits’ albums. It’s beautiful music that engages both the emotions and the intellect, and seems to exist at least partly in the shadows of memory, which is, perhaps, a bit part of what makes it such a rousing delight.

“Rave On Buddy Holly”

I can’t help but compare this Buddy Holly tribute album to I’m Not There, the truly spectacular Dylan tribute that came out a few years back; that’s partly because Rave On assembles many of the same artists from the last go-round, and is also the product of some of the same executive producers, but it’s also because, quite simply, I think Rave On is the most high-profile album of its kind since that Dylan record. I confess that, in this (perhaps slightly unfair) match-up, Rave On doesn’t come out looking great. But if Rave On is no I’m Not There, it’s somewhat due to the fact that Buddy Holly was no Bob Dylan. I mean no disrespect; it’s just that, where Bob’s labyrinthine compositions offer ample material for creative reconfiguring, Holly’s songs were much simpler and leaner, and the way Buddy himself recorded them is pretty much the only way that really makes sense.

The fact that the artists here have slightly less to work with makes it all the more puzzling to find that Rave On is a collection that advertises itself as a set of radical reinventions. Certainly the Dylan set had its fair share of curveballs, but much of its success came from its careful balance of reinventions and relatively straightforward readings. An album leaning too far toward the former, of course, runs the risk of irreverence, while a turn toward the latter eventually results in sheer pointlessness. I’m Not There walked a fine line; Rave On is, on the whole, a lot more off-kilter.

There are a few numbers that play it straight, though, and even these songs make it clear just how indebted to Holly’s enduring legacy many of these artists are. Julian Casablancas brings a lot of echo and reverb to his reading of the title song, and it’s remarkably effective in how it sounds like a relatively straight version of the original tune while also sounding like vintage Casablancas; he’s a bespectacled hipster who finds himself in the nonchalant Buddy Holly tradition, I suppose, and the track feels like a tribute to both artists at the same time. On the other hand, She & Him’s “Oh Boy” makes it so clear that the duo finds their footing in pre-Beatles rock and roll– with all the innocence and romance that it implies– that the song really just ends up sounding like a so-so She & Him track.

As for the reinventions, I’ll get the stinkers out of the way first. Cee-Lo Green probably takes the cake here with a truly gaudy, showy version of “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care,” something like this album’s equivalent of Sufjan Stevens’ completely tone deaf I’m Not There contribution. At under two minutes in length it nevertheless feels like the most overblown thing here, and makes a compelling case for why Holly’s lean, direct approach was typically the best fit for the kinds of songs that he wrote. And Florence and the Machine– a band I like– should receive credit for their imagination, at least, in doing “Not Fade Away” as what the press release calls “industrial New Orleans.” That’s a fitting description, I suppose, but it’s not at all a good thing.

But there is much to like here; a mixed bag it may be, but it’s largely good stuff, or at least decent enough. The best thing here is Paul McCartney’s contribution– no big surprise, given how Macca has always idolized Holly. His “It’s So Easy” is a boisterous, wisecracking blast of rock and roll energy, one of the best things he’s recorded in ages, and his impish wit and gleeful charisma make me wish he’s record a whole album of stuff like this (a follow-up to the quite wonderful Run Devil Run, I guess). Second-place honors go to the album-opening Black Keys contribution, which pays homage to Holly but also continues with their Brothers experiments in spooky, minimal R&B.

What else? Some of the album’s greatest pleasures come from some relatively straightforward but nevertheless charming cuts by Nick Lowe and John Doe, who don’t take great liberties but do infuse their selections with a bit of their own personality. (Doe was also present on I’m Not There, where his “Pressing On” was a highlight; he is produced here, as he was there, by Joe Henry.) Modest Mouse does a sinister and creepy version of “That’ll Be the Day” that feels quite organic, and like Modest Mouse through and through. My Morning Jacket’s song is lovely, and more natural-sounding than anything off their last couple albums. And God help me but I do enjoy Patti Smith’s hippy-dippy, mystical take on “Words of Love.” Cheesy though it may be, it’s also quite lovely.

John Paul Keith: “The Man That Time Forgot”

John Paul Keith is just the kind of singer/songwriter I tend to find tedious and boring, but I’ll be damned if his new The Man That Time Forgot isn’t an old-school charmer that’s won me over in a big way. I’ll be honest: There’s little about the man to suggest that he’s much more than a natty, well-groomed revivalist, a hipster who cheerfully pretends like the last forty years of pop music never happened. There isn’t a lick or a melody here that doesn’t sound like it was copped from the 1950s or early 60s, and nothing about Keith’s music to suggest that he’s interested in anything beyond dogged recreation of golden age sounds and styles. Despite it all, the record sinks its hooks in early and leaves them in long after the thing stops playing, and Keith, while not exactly an original, is at the very least an ace singer, songwriter, and guitarist who fills these songs with big hooks and a lot of love.

To some extent, it’s a simple matter of his good taste, which goes a long way in records like this. The press release for the album casually drops references to the artist’s love of Chuck Berry and B.B. King, and though his name is a composite of two Beatles and a Stone, his music studiously avoids these sounds in favor of vintage country and early Sun Records rock and roll; nothing wrong with the Beatles or Stones, of course, but you have to respect a young guy whose tastes are so old-school that they largely write Lennon/McCartney out of the equation, and indeed, even when his songs ape the British Invasion, Keith seems more interested in the ramshackle sounds of youthful exuberance than in, say, anything that came after Rubber Soul.

What his good taste gets at, I think, is that John Paul Keith understands what makes this material resonate, and he’s careful to not simply mimic the details but to really nail what’s at the heart of this music. To that end, The Man That Time Forgot is a record that celebrates the innocence of garage rock, the naked emotion of country, and the wide-eyed optimism of pre-Beatles rock and roll. It is entirely unpretentious; as a lyricist Keith shows zero interest in writing serious songs about politics or spirituality, for instance, but instead focuses on timeless expressions of romance, a good-natured song or two about booze and life on the road, and completely non-indulgent pop songs about writing pop songs, something that’s really pretty tricky to pull off, at least without sounding completely self-absorbed.

And that’s really his secret; frankly, these are all just ace pop songs with great hooks, songs so warm that they instantly sound like they’re vintage. Fat Possum house producer Bruce Watson worked with Keith on this one, as did his One Four Fives backing band, and the sound of the record is warm and significantly cleaner and less scruffy than Keith’s last outing, yet it’s no less energetic or appealingly ramshackle because of it. It’s a great platform for Keith’s infectious and cheerfully classicist songwriting.

And oh, what songs! Any of these dozen tracks (most of which hit at just over two minutes) could be mistaken as a jukebox staple– albeit, jukeboxes in places ranging from honky tonks to old-timey diners. Keith’s greatest gift is his understanding of the elegant, understated power of simplicity. “You Devil You” begins with a gently rollicking acoustic guitar that could be mistaken for an old teenybopper hit– Ricky Nelson, maybe– before a jaunty piano figure comes in. Keith has a great ear for simple lines that sound timeless: “It’s not from above/ this hell of a love,” is the kind of turn of phrase that contemporary Nashville songwriters would be working toward, were they not so preoccupied with forcing their cornpone humor and “Real America” sentimentality down our throats. That song leads nicely into the basic, British Invasion vamp of “Anyone Can Do It”– sounding a bit like The Who at their most innocent and R&B-influenced. “I Think I Fell in Love Today” combines a teenybopper lyric, a Roy Orbison melody, and a farfisa organ. “Dry County” is a boisterous little rockabilly tune, and it’s not really about the booze so much as it is a celebration of good times and innocent teenage rebellion. “Somebody Ought to Write a Song About You,” meanwhile, is a perfect title for a perfectly timeless rock and roll ballad.

But everything here hits, and I suspect that it does so partly because Keith is simply an impeccable songwriter and performer, but partly because he believes in this stuff. There’s no artifice here, nothing to suggest that these vintage clothes are anything but his authentic wardrobe. He makes this music because this is the music he genuinely likes, and he has no interest in conceding to modern tastes. The title track is a spot-on country song with a lyric that could well be a statement of purpose: “I’m an old familiar tune/ that you used to hum/ Set your watch back, baby/ when you see me come.” But of course, time hasn’t truly forgotten these sounds and styles; there’s nothing here that doesn’t resonate now just as strongly as it would have half a century ago.

Tedeschi Trucks Band: “Revelator”

There are eleven musicians who play in the Tedeschi Trucks Band, and if you don’t believe me, just look at their album cover; there they are, lined up and ready to be counted. I feel this is worth mentioning because, just by listening to the music, you wouldn’t necessarily think there were so many players in the ensemble. And I mean that as a very good thing. As the debut recording from this troupe, which consists of one knockout blues singer, one honorary Allman Brother and universally-heralded slide guitar deity, and nine supporting cast members, including two drummers and a horn section, this could well have turned into an album of interminable “jam band” tedium, or little more than an excuse for one indulgent solo after another. Imagine my surprise, and my delight, to find that, while the record is stacked with great performances, there really aren’t a lot of extended solos. There are simply a lot of great songs– the perfect foundation for this new unit, and, I hope, the first of many (official) joint outings for Susan Tedeschi and Derek Trucks.

If the emphasis on songs over jamming seems surprising, I should hasten to add that Revelator is not a sparse or close-to-the-bone affair, and has really nothing at all in common with the Gillian Welch album of the same name. That album is hauntingly spare. This one is thick, heady Dixie funk with hearty doses of gospel, blues, New Orleans line music, and Southern (Allman-esque, I suppose) rock. It is nothing if not generous, heavily saturated with authentic emotion and yes, fiery performances. It’s the first time the two principles– a husband/wife team who have guested on each other’s fine solo albums many times before– have ever released an album under the Tedeschi Trucks umbrella, and they invest a lot of passion and effort into making this a launching point for the band as a band; the chemistry of their playing and the high quality of the songs themselves are important. That said, the band members flesh out this sound without drawing attention to their own chops; it’s something of a platform for Tedeschi’s voice, but only because she’s really carrying the heart of these songs.

Their official on-record union has much in common with previous Tedeschi and Trucks albums, of course. In fact, if there’s a disappointment to be found here, it’s in the fact that Revelator mostly avoids some of the more interesting or out-there quirks of the best Derek Trucks albums, largely avoiding, for instance, the African and Indian influences that flavored Songlines. (There is a bit of an Eastern, psychedelic swirl to “These Walls.”) The album is more directly linked to Tedeschi’s wonderful Back to the River (maybe her best solo album) and the Derek Trucks Band album Already Free (which wasn’t bad at all). It’s all about the simmering grooves, the powerhouse vocals, and the Southern-fried grit.

Tedeschi, of course, knocks it out of the park, over and over again, both as a singer and a songwriter. She has love and domesticity on her mind, and these songs tackle romance and family life with alternating perspectives of gratitude and, at least in the wrenching “These Walls,” some despair. They are soulful, hopeful, and sweet, and Tedeschi makes their emotional truths connect. She proves more than capable of bringing sultry, swampy seduction to opener “Come See About Me” and the drawling “Don’t Let Me Slide,” but she really steals the show on “Love Has Something Else to Say,” where she not only brings the swagger to a thoroughly excellent Stax groove but also steals some of Trucks’ thunder by shredding through her own, full-on rock and roll guitar solo.

But the band brings grace notes and winning flourishes all over the place. They introduce “Until You Remember” with New Orleans horn fanfare, and they provide supple support to the shimmering, bluesy gospel of “Don’t Let Me Slide.” On “Simple Things,” they show restraint that’s amazing; it’s a shimmering, B-3 groove that isn’t exactly minimal but is certainly light in its touch, maybe the best example here of how this eleven-piece puts aside their egos and overcomes sheer volume to really serve the song. And the best thing here, on every level, is a wonderfully propulsive, spirited groove called “Bound for Glory,” which is gospel both in its title and in its sound; its spiked horns and incredible hook make it the album standout.

But of course everything here is smokin’ hot, and each of the eleven members prove their worth to the ensemble; indeed, as much as it may be tempting to focus on the two bandleaders, they rise and fall as a unit, and Revelator is a win for everyone involved. The hope, then, is that it doesn’t turn out to be a platform for further elevating Tedeschi and Trucks, but rather that it proves to be a platform on which many more Tedeschi Trucks Band outings can be built.