Nathaniel Rateliff has never been afraid to bare his soul. Solo or with The Wheel, his music sounds as if itap been yanked out from between the ribs, each song a painful, non-elective excision. is the typical Rateliff gateway track for good reason: it hits like a cheap shot to the solar plexus. Here as in the rest of his best, Rateliff breaks in the door with a primal howl and lingers well after its sounding on the effect of his intimations.
Though his genre of choice has shifted here, Rateliff is no less harrowing with the Night Sweats. The band’s debut is an electrifying marriage of jukebox rhythms and dark-night-of-the-soul reflection. But its rhythm and blues are confined almost exclusively to its respective instruments and lyrics, making for a deceptively thoughtful party record that can squeeze sweat or tears in the one breath depending on the listener.
Ratliff has staked his name to his songwriting, and this album catches it at its crest. You just might not realize it. Trumpet stabs and jangling riffs fill in the quiet pockets that once served to highlight Rateliff’s wound licking. for example, is the catchiest song Rateliff’s ever cut, and has become a live centerpiece at shows thanks to its anthemic, chorus. But undercutting it all, Rateliff addresses his struggle with alcoholism in all-too certain terms, going so far as to work a description of the delirium tremens into a pseudo jive that echoes the double-entendre of his band’s name. Itap an enabler’s song, capturing the guilty release of a friend on the wagon cracking a beer for old time’s sake.
With no less bravado, addresses these enablers. Crucially, that includes us. The song lays out not just the crux of the album, but a sticking point for Rateliff’s well-being: Whatap the impetus for getting your shit together when your self-destructive tendencies are not only overlooked, but actually pay your rent? After all, nearly all of Rateliff’s catalogue—his last two albums tellingly titled “In Memory of Loss” and “Falling Faster Than You Can Run”—have sprung from pain. (Maybe the fear is that itap the only subject he can do justice: “Shake,” the album’s least conflicted song, falls short of this album’s high-test standards.)
Rateliff’s debut with the Night Sweats then marks a turning point in the artistap relationship with his precarious emotional state. The closest he gets to a dirge here is “Wasting Time,” a wrenching reflection on the dust he’s kicked up on his road to ever-imminent redemption. The band rightfully steps back here, and lets Rateliff do Rateliff: “Think of all the hours I spent in constant reflection / well it gets you down but it don’t make it right.” Itap a stylistic exception rather than the rule, a standout for all the reasons Rateliff is on our radars in the first place. In reality, Rateliff’s latest is merely a different angle on the same aching verve thatap spilled out of him for the last decade. But the chord it strikes is no less cutting. If he’s going to be wringing out his heart night after night, the album figures, how great might it be to dance it out too? We hear you, Nathaniel.
