Lake Street Dive – Good Together (2024) [Official Digital Download 24bit/48kHz]

Lake Street Dive – Good Together (2024)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/48 kHz | Time – 36:30 minutes | 435 MB | Genre: Pop, Soul, Indie Pop
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Fantasy

‘Good Together’, the eighth full-length LP from Lake Street Dive is an eclectic set of genre-bending songs that could only have come from popular music’s most agile and compelling outliers. Fusing pop, R&B, soul and jazz, Lake Street Dive: Rachael Price (vocalist), Bridget Kearney (bassist/background vocalist), Mike Calabrese(drummer/background vocalist), Akie Bermiss (keyboardist/vocalist), and James Cornelison (guitarist/background vocalist), have created the most confident and accomplished recording of their career. Produced by frequent collaborator Mike Elizondo (Fiona Apple, Sheryl Crow) and recorded in 2023 at Phantom Studios in Gallatin Tennessee, Good Together features 11 original tracks all written (in various combinations or solo) by members of Lake Street Dive. Playing with exuberance and heart, the soulful group is joyously light on its feet, while lead vocalist Rachael Price inhabits each track with a sophistication and style all her own.

It’s clear from the ebullient title track of their latest album, that Lake Street Dive understands the formula for fueling a summer-party dance floor: a little bit of fun, some good-time jazziness, knockout vocals, happy horns, and caffeinated keys, all combined with a familiarity that isn’t repetitive or overly retro. Singer Rachael Price is such a powerful figure that, in most bands, she would get all the attention. But Lake Street Dive’s players, the core group of which first got together in 2004 at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, more than hold their own space. Every single person shines on songs like the soulful “Help Is on the Way,” which gives off Lyle Lovett and His Large Band energy with its jazz-infused keys and easygoing horns. Breezy disco with deep funk bass and eye-watering keys, “Dance With a Stranger” exudes big summer vibes and preaches the gospel of finding community and connection on the dance floor. Bassist Bridget Kearney says she was inspired after attending a small-town VFW hall square dance while at a writer’s retreat, and the group chant shows it, rewriting the classic vocal calls: “Left, right, front, side/ Find somebody new.” (Target or the Gap should grab this for a TV commercial ASAP.) Price channels the virtuoso playfulness of Joni Mitchell’s “Raised on Robbery” on the exuberant “Far Gone,” punctuated by breathy whistle, galloping drums and jumping Steve Nieve-esque keys from Akie Bermiss. “Get Around” is deep funk in the Rufus vein. Price puts grit into her true-diva delivery, and the rhythm section—Mike Calabrese’s crisp, tight snare and Bridget Kearney’s big-boss bass—steal the show. But Price also knows when to pull it back. She grazes the high notes on torchy “Walking Uphill,” but doesn’t need to show off with ridiculous runs; her stunning delivery sounds as natural as breathing. She completely sheds her armor for “Twenty-Five,” a mellowed-out piano ballad that honors the misty water-colored memories of a lost love from youth. You can hear the spots where Price could fill in and overdo it, but she wisely lets the song breathe instead of sucking up its oxygen. Caffeinated “Better Not Tell You” casts her as an R&B belter in a song that struts like “Sir Duke.” And brassy “Party On the Roof”—which Kearney calls “a love letter to New York City … sipping a beer from the bodega and looking out at the glimmering lights of the skyline”—is meant to be played at the point in the night when libations have everyone feeling warm and loose and ready to shake it out. – Shelly Ridenour

Tracklist:
1-1. Lake Street Dive – Good Together (03:21)
1-2. Lake Street Dive – Dance With a Stranger (03:35)
1-3. Lake Street Dive – Far Gone (02:03)
1-4. Lake Street Dive – Get Around (02:51)
1-5. Lake Street Dive – Help Is On the Way (03:03)
1-6. Lake Street Dive – Walking Uphill (03:16)
1-7. Lake Street Dive – Better Not Tell You (03:12)
1-8. Lake Street Dive – Seats At the Bar (03:55)
1-9. Lake Street Dive – Twenty-Five (03:02)
1-10. Lake Street Dive – Party On the Roof (03:41)
1-11. Lake Street Dive – Set Sail (Prometheus & Eros) (04:27)

Download: