Through sheer persistence,
Elle King turned her 2015 debut Love Stuff into a smash hit, working its lead single, "Ex's & Oh's," for over a year until it cracked the Billboard Top 10 and earned two Grammy nominations. "Ex's & Oh's" raised the stakes for
Shake the Spirit, the sophomore set
King delivered three-and-a-half years after her debut. From the moment "Talk of the Town" kicks off
Shake the Spirit in a flurry of fuzz, it's clear
King feels bolder than she did the first time around, allowing herself to break from the retro stylings that defined Love Stuff without quite abandoning vintage sounds and form. As the tracks spill out, what's striking about
Shake the Spirit is the extent to which
King embraces flashy modern flair, a move that telegraphs her confidence in her own authenticity: she believes in the heart pulsing within these songs, so she's content to let the recording dazzle. There's a reason for this.
Shake the Spirit was written in the upheaval of the success of Love Stuff, a period that included a quickie marriage, rock star excess, and an abundance of soul searching, so the songs are filled with yearning and uncertainty, emotions that could be reasonably called the blues. Much of the album is blues, but it's strength lies within
King allowing herself not to be confined by notions of purity. Some of this comes from her selection of producers --
Greg Kurstin, the Grammy Award-winning producer of
Adele, who has also worked with
Beck and
Paul McCartney, is the marquee name here, among several other noteworthy helmers -- but
King is responsible for the splashy, sultry sound of
Shake the Spirit, one that conjures the past while being firmly focused on the present. Its sonic audacity is so bracing, it's relatively easy to forgive the lyrical stumbles, which crystallize on the dirty puns of "It Girl," but that's nearly beside the point because, unlike Love Stuff,
Shake the Spirit never seems indebted to
Elle King's idols. Instead, it embodies her own bold, bawdy heart. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine