TORONTO – For those impatiently anticipating new music from southern-fried blues-rock breakouts Alabama Shakes, frontwoman Brittany Howard has a familiar message: Hold on.

“I think writing-wise we’ve gotten better and we’ve gotten more detailed and we’ve just gotten tighter, really. I think the only thing I want is more time,” Howard said in a telephone interview last week from her home in Athens, Ala.

“I know people want another record. But we’d been playing these songs for like three years before people heard the old record, ‘Boys & Girls.’ It’s time for us to write new songs and I don’t want to be rushed doing it, because we weren’t rushed before. So I’m gonna take my time.”

It’s hard to blame Howard for wanting to duplicate what was obviously a winning approach to the band’s head-turning debut.

That record — an appealing set of rock songs drenched in blues, soul and gospel — dropped last April, receiving positive reviews and eventually racking up gold sales in the U.S. and U.K. The band was nominated for three Grammy Awards at February’s gala, including a nod in the major best new artist category.

While they didn’t take an award, they left the night winners after Howard put her mighty vocals on display during a tribute to the Band’s late singer Levon Helm. Though in her mid-20s, she has a soulful, smoky instrument that sounds as though it belongs to a wizened vet twice her age. On Thursday, the band has a sold-out show at Toronto’s Echo Beach, with concerts in Vancouver, Edmonton and Calgary to follow in late July.

With her load-bearing pipes, lively stage presence and unique, self-taught style of playing guitar, Howard is the unquestioned focus of the quartet’s live performances. She says she’s still adjusting to that spotlight.

“Some days, yeah I’m comfortable, and some days I’m nervous,” she said with a chuckle.

Not long ago, Howard was delivering mail for the U.S. Postal Service and merely dreaming of a music career. Now, she fronts a celebrated band with a roster of well-known sworn fans that includes Adele, Russell Crowe and, Howard points out with some elation, even the Coen brothers.

Having spent time at home recently has given Howard even more perspective on what’s changed.

“I didn’t really have a house a year ago,” she said. “I lived in a room a year ago. Now I have a house here in Athens. So yeah, it’s a lot different. It’s awesome. I have my friends come over. I just treat ’em good, I treat ’em right — because I’m able to.”

One of the oldest cities in Alabama, Athens has a population around 22,000. The sort of success Howard and company have experienced isn’t just rare for the small Southern town — it’s unheard of.

So she’s returned home to find some measure of local celebrity. Again and again, she’s stopped by locals who want to chat about Alabama Shakes.

“It’s usually just nice stuff … ‘we’re proud of you, and we hope you keep being successful,'” Howard said. “It’s been nice, encouraging things. And sometimes you get these drunk kids at bars, and they’re like: ‘Man, your life is just set. Your life’s perfect now.’

“And it’s like, nah, that’s not really how it is, dude. You know, they have no clue at all. And I would like to take the time to tell them — but usually it’s not worth it, because they’re wasted.”