Lake Street Dive GOOD TOGETHER

Lake Street Dive
Good Together
Fantasy Records

So Cool This Could Be Curated By Steve McQueen!

Apparently, this is Lake Street Dive’s 8th album yet our paths never crossed until las Sunday when I was cutting my lawns.
We were at the stage of the month when all of the ‘obvious’ and ‘reviewers choice’ albums were in the can and I needed something to fit into the schedule. As I scrolled through my iPhone I came across Lake Street Dive and vaguely remembered the bio on the press release … as it was an uncommonly hot and sunny day I gave it a shot.
I had only mown the first line of grass when my feet and hips were sashaying in time with my ‘reviewers brain’ which had me thinking … “Imagine if Amy Winehouse had attended a writing class with Lowell George and git the Doobie Brothers to back her!”
I’m four days in now and still can’t disagree with that initial thought …. this album really is that good … and cool.
In fairness the first few notes on the keyboards that introduce opening track Good Together worried me as I thought I was going headlong into Miami Vice territory, but that was just a tease as Rachel Price invokes that inner ‘Amy Winehouse’ as the band make their instruments strut and swagger around her amazing voice; and charming song.
This is followed by the cool Dance With a Stranger that simply bubbles like a rose spumante on a sunny afternoon while you’re flirting with someone that you probably shouldn’t be.
There’s definitely a Pop/commercial schtick here at times; but when it’s this good I don’t really care and in fairness the names I dropped earlier (and a couple of other bands that spring to mind) were never scared of 45RPM chart success, were they … and here the brass enhanced Party on The Roof, Walking Uphill and especially the bouncy Far Gone deserve national daytime radio play, and if that was to beget chart success, so be it … the world will be a little bit better because of it, that’s for sure.
BTW it’s the tunes and melodies that are ‘commercial’ (and generally danceable) but the lyrics are deep and razor sharp if you give them your attention; not least Get Around and the ethereal Set Sail at the end.
Not every song is ‘wine and roses’, Lake Street Dive aren’t afraid to drop in a heartbreaking ballad when you’re least expecting it, the harrowing duet Twenty Five is a prime example, as is the beatlicious Seats at The Bar which precedes it and sounds like something Linda Ronstadt would have sung back in the day (or indeed Amy Winehouse of course).
In someways this album actually sounds like it’s full of Hit Singles, but choosing a Favourite Song was easier than I’d at first feared.
Two songs right in the middle prove to be a cornerstone for everything either side; the desperately emotional Walking Uphill is a song every songwriter would have been proud to write and the arrangement is absolutely staggering; while Better Not Tell You which follows is a lot more bouncy but the words and Rachael Price’s enunciation will surely microwave the heart of everyone who hears it.
After seven previous albums it feels wrong to say Lake Street Dive have been a discovery for me; but that’s exactly what they’ve been … and maybe I will delve deeper into their back catalogue to see if this is just one of many great albums.

*In many ways this is my ‘sound of the Summer’ so it remains to be seen and heard if these songs are just as good when they visit a rainy and cold Manchester in January 2025!!

Released 21st June 2024
https://www.lakestreetdive.com/

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https://lakestreetdivemusic.bandcamp.com/album/good-together