Having started out as a genre-bending indie outfit, Boston's Lake Street Dive have matured into sophisticated purveyors of vintage-inspired soul, funk, and adult contemporary pop. It's a sound that helped make 2018's Free Yourself Up such a delightful surprise, and one which they further perfect on their seventh album, 2021's thoughtfully ebullient Obviously. Produced with warm clarity by Mike Elizondo, the album again showcases the talents of lead singer Rachael Price, bassist Bridget Kearney, guitarist Mike McDuck Olson, and drummer Mike Calabrese. Also rejoining the group (having initially come aboard in 2017) is their not-so-secret weapon keyboardist/vocalist Akie Bermiss, whose jazzy piano chops and warm vocals help elevate the group's sound throughout. Particularly engaging is "Same Old News," an earthy duet between Price and Bermiss that brings to mind the classic '70s work of Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway. The band conjures equally potent vibes elsewhere, as on the romantic R&B anthem "Hypotheticals," and the '80s Phil Collins-style ballad "Anymore." There's also a palpable undercurrent of feminism and progressive social consciousness running throughout the album as Lake Street Dive wrestle with some of the issues their generation and the next seem to be coming to terms with. On "Making Do," Price sings, "Killer waves and riots/Coming to the coastline soon...I guess it's hard to be a human/It's ?ven harder to be not/Wh?n you're making do with what you've got." That said, there's never a sense that Lake Street Dive are preaching with heavy hands, and cuts like the bluesy "Hush Money" and the lyrical "Nobody's Stopping You Now" have a universally relatable feeling. That they also evoke the classic album-oriented work of artists like Fleetwood Mac and Carly Simon speaks to Lake Street Dive's ever-deepening sense of songcraft. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi

1		Hypotheticals
2		Hush Money
3		Same Old News
4		Being a Woman
5		Making Do
6		Nobody's Stopping You Now
7		Know That I Know
8		Lackluster Lover
9		Anymore
10		Feels Like the Last Time
11		Sarah

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