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Apr 5, 2012Just a series of great, swampy soul grooves, fronted by the most arresting new voice you'll hear this year, and the kind of natural songwriting that seems to contain the entire history of Southern music within its staves.
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Apr 9, 2012Boys & Girls is more than a debut album. It's an introduction to a band you thought you knew for years, but are just fortunate enough to meet now.
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Apr 10, 2012The Alabama Shakes' first album, Boys & Girls, is an electric jolt that anyone who loves blues-based rock music should track down immediately
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Apr 10, 2012Boys & Girls is best enjoyed not as an anachronism but as a fresh take on the sounds from a bygone era.
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Apr 16, 2012The album encapsulates summers of falling asleep on porches, cicadas chirping periodically among the trees, shaking slightly from a passing breeze.
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Q MagazineApr 13, 2012Alabama Shakes' nods to vocal giants past never overshadow the fact that their music has a raw, aggressive style that is completely their own. [May 2012, p.90]
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Apr 12, 2012This good old-fashioned rock and soul quartet make good on their buzz with a debut that not only shakes, but also rattles and rolls.
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Apr 9, 2012They not only shake but also rattle, roll and do everything else to ears and body that the most rumbustious soul-rock and roots music can.
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Apr 9, 2012Unrefined, unresigned, occasionally clunky, frequently obtuse but always, always fit to bust.
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UncutApr 6, 2012Alabama Shakes are scarcely the first ornery yet soulful rock sound to have emerged from northern Alabama, but they're abundantly worthy bearers of the standard. [May 2012, p.73]
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Apr 5, 2012Lyrics are route-one effective throughout, as you'd expect from an album called Boys & Girls, but the Shakes are not one-dimensional.
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Apr 5, 2012The rawness of the band puts them in a different category than other soul revivalists like Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, but the visceral quality of Boys & Girls gives Alabama Shakes an edge.
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Apr 5, 2012Their talent and impossible-to-fake passion merit the sudden attention.
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Apr 5, 2012[Even] if Alabama Shakes do nothing original, they strike classic poses with real guts.
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Apr 16, 2012Those who have witnessed the group's floor-shaking live shows might be a bit disarmed by the deliberately dense and lo-fi production of "Boys & Girls."
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Apr 9, 2012A solid debut.
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Apr 10, 2012The great news is that even the bad news is good news: Alabama Shakes have a hell of a lot of growing to do, but even their slightest tunes pack a punch.
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Apr 6, 2012The rough-hewn production wouldn't pass muster on a major-label budget: amplifiers audibly hum, voices crack with emotion, a few bum notes crop up here and there. But this band is terrific all the same.
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Apr 26, 2012While the result doesn't justify the buildup, there is no doubt that frontwoman Brittany Howard is a major talent.
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Apr 20, 2012Their roots are just that--roots, not anchors, allowing the group to grow, often in unexpected and quietly thrilling ways.
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Apr 11, 2012Boys & Girls is a short album that clocks in at 35-minutes over the course of 11 songs. But by the time it's done, you'll want to start it over again.
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Apr 10, 2012Boys & Girls, is a profound submission, one which injects fresh life into the genre while maintaining its blazing spirit.
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Apr 10, 2012Howard's black-dirt gravitas holds it all together.
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Apr 10, 2012In many ways Boys & Girls it is as note-perfect an album as you'll hear all year, yet it's also often perfectly inert.
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Apr 9, 2012Compared to computer-tuned radio pop, or even the big-time pop-soul of a genuine singer like Adele, the Alabama Shakes sound raw-boned and proudly unprocessed.
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Apr 10, 2012Exciting as it can be, Boys & Girls could use just a little more shakin' going on.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 49 out of 62
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Mixed: 5 out of 62
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Negative: 8 out of 62
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Jun 4, 2020Alabama Shakes debut album and its the best. Love their energy and sound. Hope they have a long long career!!!!
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Feb 24, 2016
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Dec 29, 2014