Five years into the most successful phase of his career,
Nathaniel Rateliff suffered an identity crisis. His bold 2015 transformation from lyrical indie folk act to retro-soul bandleader went about as well as he could have hoped; his full-band debut,
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, went gold, effectively launching the Denver singer/songwriter into the mainstream. Their 2018 follow-up,
Tearing at the Seams, was similarly successful, but when
Rateliff found himself in a more introspective mood, he resumed his solo career and recorded the more subdued and personal
And It's Still Alright. Faced with the prospect of having to keep dividing his material between two camps,
Rateliff took a gamble and tried to fuse some of
the Night Sweats' rock & roll swagger with the more thoughtful tone of his solo work. This creative reckoning leads the band down some interesting paths on The Future, their third outing together. Without fully abandoning the rugged soul-rock of their first two records,
Rateliff and his crew take a more exploratory and collaborative approach that is ultimately quite satisfying. Opening the album, the rousing country-soul title track is not only the best of the bunch but one of
Rateliff's best tracks to date. A world-weary mid-tempo barn burner with a host of gutsy payoffs, it sets the nervy tone that gives this album its identity.
The Night Sweats could easily have carried on churning out the type of retro-R&B party music that built their career, but
Rateliff made the right choice in giving them some weightier material to chew on. The question of where to go next is at the heart of the excellent
Harry Nilsson-esque "Something Ain't Right," a chunky piano pop gem over which he bellows "Part of me feels I've arrived, but sometimes it don't align." A dark, almost angry grit shades cuts like "Survivor" and the punchy "So Put Out," while the sparse "Baby I Got Your Number" breaks the band down to their core elements. Likewise, the shuffling "Love Me Till I'm Gone" finds
the Night Sweats channeling the autumnal blue-eyed soul of
Van Morrison, a sound that suits them well. By the time they close with the fiery Motown vamp "Love Don't,"
Rateliff and his band have covered a nice range of moods on what is their most diverse release yet. ~ Timothy Monger