As the saying goes, time heals all wounds. But what happens when unexpected events keep pressuring those wounds, potentially prolonging and further disrupting the healing process? Trying to find beauty amid the chaos triggered by personal and cultural ruptures drives I Must Be Dreaming, the third record by Southern rock trio Alabama Shakes and their first in eleven years. This more emotionally forward thematic approach makes sense, as the years since their last record, 2015’s brilliant Sound & Color, have been intense for both the band and the world at large. In the first month of the pandemic, drummer and co-founding member Steve Johnson was arrested on charges of domestic violence, consequently leading to his departure from the group. Following a bout of writer’s block, lead vocalist Brittany Howard ventured into producing two genre-fluid solo projects, 2019’s thrillingly adventurous Jamie and 2024’s equally exploratory What Now. And you don’t need to read a history textbook to know that our culture has also gone through its own messy, radical changes during all of this. Alabama Shakes didn’t really engage in the zeitgeist on their first two albums, mainly focusing on churning out gorgeous, rollicking love songs mined from the spirit of ‘60s soul and ‘70s vintage rock. But after Howard excavated her queerness and biracial identity in her own work, it only makes sense that the band would continue to explore and expand on these meditations on the self and the world around us once they reunited. Indeed, I Must Be Dreaming marks a minor but distinctive shift from Sound & Color and their 2012 debut Boys & Girls, keeping its predecessors’ aching bluesiness while flirting with a more political tone and evoking the shaggy, uncompressed style of ‘70s psychedelic soul. In channeling the craziness that’s reigned over the past decade through this loungier and blissed-out frequency, I Must Be Dreaming feels heavier, wearier, and a little more low-key than the band’s previous output. Although its hypnagogic ambiance somewhat inhibits the album from reaching true emotional transcendence, I Must Be Dreaming still delivers plenty of swooning, tender tracks. CHECK OUT: Alabama Shakes built a kingdom in the chaos As expected, Howard’s stirring vocals are a highlight. The quieter, more sensual side of her crackling croon gels best with the album’s wandering atmosphere, especially on tracks like the standout “Garden,” while her belting howl injects some energy into the doozier anthems like “Time,” whose moody organ, thrashing guitar breakdown, and title vaguely recall the mind-bending classic from Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon. The record’s emotional pendulum swings ably between depressive and contemplative, tackling tense platonic fallouts (“Friends”), the swell of true love (“Easy”), the unmet promises set by our country (“American Dream”), and the cautious optimism for a better future (“I Feel Hope Coming”). I Must Be Dreaming is at its best when its bittersweet songwriting melts into the hazy instrumentation. On “Garden,” for instance, Howard croaks about the importance of nurturing a loved one’s needs, a feeling enhanced even further by Lewis Wright’s heavenly, indelible vibraphone and Zac Cockrell’s delicate drumming. Howard’s emotional honesty, Cockrell’s funky bass playing, and Heath Fogg’s fuzzy, distorted guitar riffs also add rich color to the devastation of “Friends,” which poignantly captures the betrayal and loss of someone you thought you could trust yourself around (“All those feelings where I lay down everything I am / I knew it was too good to be true”). And closer “Tied to You,” which Howard described as a “psychedelic Sade” in the press notes, does feel inspired by the famed R&B singer’s smoky-sad sonic textures. At the same time, the emotional contradictions that animate the album struggle to elevate the formulaicness of cuts like “Another Life” and “I Feel Hope Coming.” And despite Howard’s vital plea for compassion and understanding in the face of our increasingly nihilistic, fascist landscape, the album’s largely unassuming production and relatively unhurried pace don’t quite match the emotional urgency of that desire, and end up defusing it slightly rather than galvanizing it. The one exception to this would be the penultimate track “American Dream,” where Howard’s raw emotions about the state of current events (“How many folks got shot this week / It’s enough to make you wanna go back to sleep”) match the craggy reverb and menacing thrum of the beat that buoys them. The song’s righteous anger is the most alive I Must Be Dreaming sounds, bringing the preceding gestures towards its political undertones into full force. And while it acts as a compelling counterpoint to the more pleasant, patient, and even sometimes moving songs that came before it, “American Dream” also reveals how much of that electric charge is missing on the rest of the album. In the same way we’re experiencing a transitional cultural moment, I Must Be Dreaming feels like a transitional album for Alabama Shakes, one that might be too understated to fully satisfy but does meaningfully establish a growth and expansion in perspective. [Island] Sam Rosenberg is a filmmaker and freelance entertainment writer from Los Angeles with bylines in The Daily Beast, Consequence, AltPress, and Metacritic. You can find them on X @samiamrosenberg.