Poorly executed production and no hooks to be found

Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats sit somewhere at the crossroads of folk, rock and soul, to a degree where they’re difficult to pinpoint. Their music is clearly a retro throwback, but the era they recall is often unclear. The band has certainly put together some great, swaggering hooks on earlier tracks like “You Worry Me,” but the death of their perennial producer Richard Swift forced them into new personnel, and the results on their latest record, The Future, are iffy. Producer Bradley Cook proves himself a poor fit for this group, as Rateliff’s voice is poorly utilized and certain tones get in the way of any rock fun or folksy atmosphere.

Tearing at the Seems, the group’s previous album, opened with “Shoe Boot,” their lushest and most off-kilter song to date with layers of brass, organ licks and percussion, with an almost total absence of guitar. It showed that Rateliff and his crew are comfortable with a level of sonic depth and chaos. The Future has similar levels of excess, but unfortunately, they’re not nearly as well-executed.

There are still high points. “What If I” features soulful backing vocals, and Rateliff’s anguished vocals aren’t as sloppily mixed as they are elsewhere on the record. “Love Me Till I’m Gone” anchors the horns with tense, stress-filled strumming and keys to great effect, and “Love Don’t” is raucous enough to justify Rateliff peaking in the mix. It’s the only moment where the record truly rocks.

Considering he’s known for his work with Bon Iver and The War on Drugs, Cook is not the man for a band built on lively, classic rock flavor. In Cook’s hands, the music loses its warmth, with sounds expanding in an unnatural way. Right from the beginning of “So Put Out,” the kick drum’s echo lasts a little too long to properly create an organic atmosphere. While the horns sound natural throughout the album, the guitars are crushed into buzzy fuzz on “I’m on Your Side” and “Survivor,” and they have minimal presence overall. To make matters worse, there are no hooks to be found, and the music isn’t interesting enough to get by on atmosphere or texture alone.

Rateliff himself is poorly utilized. He’s certainly got a resonant voice capable of righteous anger and pensive woe, but Cook doesn’t support him with the proper multi-tracking to help sell his warmth. He deserves the lush harmonies of a great Zac Brown Band song, but outside of “What If I,” the vocal layering and backing vocals lack any impact. And since the album doesn’t rock as hard as previous releases, the moments where fidelity is thrown out the window and he peaks in the mix, like on the title track and “Survivor,” simply do not work.

“Oh, I” should be a slam dunk for this band with its humming and campfire singalong acoustic work, but there’s something just slightly off about Rateliff’s vocals, with unnatural hoarseness. Vocal improvs and humming are at the heart of this group—they’re the most iconic feature of their biggest song, “S.O.B.” But here, they sound flat and meandering. “Baby I Got Your Number” is another confusing track, as it doesn’t seem aware of how creepy it is, and the doo-wop singing in the final third only creates more tonal ambiguity.

Altogether, there’s very little here that works. And it’s not like The Future is a huge step away from the band’s previous albums either. But with poor production, a lack of hooks and little rocking to be found, this project winds up falling short. It doesn’t do the simple things right, which isn’t a good sign for a band built on the simple things.