Alabama Shakes bring back good ol’ days

They were just here in July, but the Alabama Shakes are like cotton candy and Jagermeister: There is not a single occasion imaginable that their presence does not improve.

“Don’t worry sweet baby!” frontlady Brittany Howard consoles on the reassuring blues shuffle “Hang Loose” from the band’s 2012 debut “Boys &Girls.” “Don’t you ever worry about a thing.”

That’s some sage advice, delivered by a woman who embodies her words by singing as if her eyes were full of stars and her belly loaded with hot coals.

These 20-somethings are too young to remember the days when soul, R&B and rock ’n’ roll were all pretty much indivisible from one another.

Doesn’t matter.

Those days have returned.

— Jason Bracelin