Bad Self Portraits

Bad Self Portraits is eclectic Boston band Lake Street Dive's third studio album, and the group's sixth release overall. Produced by Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Erin McKeown), the album comes two years after the group's covers EP, Fun Machine. Rather than revisit that album's neat gimmick of a jazz-soul band covering contemporary pop songs, Lake Street Dive instead delve into a substantial batch of their own blue-eyed-soul and Southern rock-inflected originals. Once again, the album showcases lead singer Rachel Price's resonant, old-school singing, which is still the main reason to listen to Lake Street Dive. Of course, with her band backing her at various times with harmony vocals, jazzy trumpet, crunchy tube guitar riffs, and woody jazz basslines, there's always something rootsy and unexpected happening around her on Bad Self Portraits. There is a buoyant creativity to many of Lake Street Dive's arrangements, and cuts like "Bobby Tanqueray" and "Seventeen" reveal such time-tested influences as late-'60s Muscle Shoals-influenced soul and Dusty Springfield-esque pop. ~ Matt Collar