Brittany Howard’s Remarkable Solo Debut Erases Genre

On squelchy opener “History Repeats,” Howard’s repeated chanting drives home a bluesy but galactic groove that never tires. “Stay High” combines scratchily recorded guitar strums and arhythmically twinkling chimes into a celestial backdrop appropriately reflective for Howard’s reminiscence on her childhood. On “Tomorrow,” Howard considers the promise of the future over gospel-indebted organs, call-and-response sections and handclaps. It’s more Brainfeeder than Boys & Girls.

Howard’s genre experimentation is most impressive on Jaime’s two most socially pointed tracks. “Goat Head” miraculously mixes lilting piano lines, tin-can drum work and playfully pelted xylophones into all but an adult nursery rhyme. Throughout the track, Howard recounts her upbringing as the daughter of a white mother and black father in rural Alabama, and the racism and hate crimes her family faced. “My mama was brave / To take me outside / ‘Cause Mama is white / And Daddy is black / When I first got made / Guess I made these folks mad” is the sort of deeply personal statement others might deliver with rage, but the song’s arrangement and Howard’s recitation renders her tale as no more incisive than a bedtime story. When she asks “Who slashed my dad’s tires and put a goat head in the back?” and admits she’ll never know the answer, she’s not exploding with rage. She’s instead calmly, but not quietly, tackling the ways that racism is woven into society.

Not that she’s just going to sit back and accept this. On the album’s other boldest gambit, “13th Century Metal,” Howard promises to “spread the enlightenment of love, compassion, and humanity to those who are not touched by its light,” “speak for those who cannot speak” and “oppose those whose will is to divide us and who are determined to keep us in the dark ages of fear.” Though these lyrics, not to mention the rally cries, (“I repeat, we are all brothers and sisters” and “give it to love”), could easily come across corny and clichéd, Howard’s unorthodox fusion of acidic synth triplets, rapid drum fills and her heavily-filtered speaking is as energizing and out-of-body as the most fervent of Sunday services.

“13th Century Metal” and “Goat Head” showcase the highs that Howard can reach when she’s fully in command. “I am a master student, and my spirit will never be stomped out,” she declares on the former track. This line puts words to the singing photos that have defined Jaime’s rollout: When Howard lets her passion flow unadulterated, she comes out at the top of the class.