After releasing their debut EP Here Comes Troublein March this year, The New Respects was profiled by Rolling Stone as one of the 10 New Artists You Need to Know for the month. The Nashville-born-and-bred family quartet - twins Alexis (bass) and Zandy Fitzgerald (guitar), drummer brother Darius and cousin vocalist/guitarist Jasmine Mullen - have described themselves as "a band of Christians" instead of "a Christian band". Their recent single "Something To Believe In" makes good on that distinction, blending gospel-style vocal harmonies and electric blues-rock instrumentation to imbue "the longing to believe in goodness when it looks like there is no reason to" with an accessible spiritual urgency.
Mullen, who happens to be the daughter of Nicole C. Mullen (a contemporary gospel singer-songwriter who was inducted into the Christian Music Hall of Fame in 2011), eases you into the song with a sultry retro-soul register on the song's verses - which then escalates without warning on the song's pressing chorus: 'I'm beggin' and I'm pleadin'/ Give me something to believe in/ Believe in'. The sighs, handclaps, exuberant backing vocals, driving percussion and funk influences throw some jubilance and infectious hopefulness into the mix, perfectly encapsulating the band's youthful ethos of "fun, freedom and family". This is precisely the kind of uplifting sonic pick-me-up that a divided and polarized 2017 needs - its appeal transcends time, genre, age, place and religion.
