Sometimes you forget how long people have been doing these things – and it came as something of a surprise to me that it was getting on for eight years since I’d seen Nathaniel Rateliff And The Night Sweats play a show – joyous it was too. There was something about them that night that channelled classic us songwriting and gave it some fresh ingredients.
Here on “South Of Here” – the fourth album the band (Luke Mossman, Joseph Pope III, Mark Shusterman, Patrick Meese, Daniel Hardaway, Jeff Dazey, and Andreas Wild, as well as the leader) have put out, there’s all of that going on.
“David And Goliath” tinkles with some piano and puts Ben Folds in mind, but as ever with him it feels like he’s laying himself bare. “These negative thoughts are crazy,” sings Rateliff. “But why should I even care?”.
Yet by the end of the song, the maelstrom seems to have got worse, and there’s a suggestion that the Night Sweats are extra sweaty here if you will, which happens again on “Heartless”. There’s a blue-collar, hard work thing going on here. If not quite the E Street Band, then the D St maybe.
And that’s a light-hearted point to say that the great American songbook has been noted and given another couple of pages. “Remember I Was A Dancer” is somewhere between The Hold Steady and Paul Simon, while fans of mid-period Counting Crows and horn sections need to gravitate to “Get Used To Be The Night”.
And if all those bands are in the songs, then it’s merely a starting point, “…Here” is a melting pot of all those ideas and a million more. It simply doesn’t get made otherwise.
So good and timeless are these songs, you’ll swear you’ve heard them before. The reflection of “Everybody Wants Something” is phenomenal, and Americana bands in every place would want a song somewhere near as good as “Center Of Me” and its haunting guitar.
The way they can pace a song is so impressive. “Cars In The Desert” starts as one thing but bursts into life with Rateliff asking “Tell me I’m a good man” as the horns go.
They are adept at doing so many things, so many colours and textures are in the paint box here. “Call Me (Whatever You Like)” has a hint of Southside Johnny about it (but then, doesn’t all classic-sounding US music with a horn section) and if “Time Makes Fools Of Us” is a more straightforward, straight-ahead rocker, then there’s a feeling still that this was a record that matters, that Nathaniel Rateliff poured himself into.
Ultimately, though, it’s about contrasts – just like life. So we go from: “I was sitting in a hotel room trying to write a dream, I was trying to see the world for all it could be” on “Everybody Wants Something” to “I Would Like To Heal” which is as gentle as it is summery, whatever it’s lyrics suggest.
That’s what the best do. Give you the full range of emotions, and in under 37 minutes here, that’s Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats. “South Of Here” goes exactly where it needs to go, and it’s a mighty fine trip.
Rating 9/10
