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FreshAngles
Bergen County Academies
Hackensack, NJ
Issue Date: Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Issue: Spring Edition - 2009
Last Update: Friday, June 12, 2009
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There are currently 5 editions on-line. Click on edition name to view articles. Third Trimester - Tuesday, April 01, 2008Trimester Two, 2008 - Tuesday, January 01, 2008Trimester One - Monday, October 15, 2007Trimester 3 - Wednesday, March 21, 2007Trimester 2 - Friday, March 16, 2007
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"The Rhumb Line", Barsuk Records 2008
[ArticleMedia]
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
By Michael Ciszewski
What is a band? Is it a semblance of standard rock instruments - guitar, bass, and drums? Shall we throw in the occasional piano, keyboard, or synth? Might there be room for a little cello and violin?
In 2006, Syracuse-based Ra Ra Riot, consisting of a bassist, guitarist, vocalist, cellist, violinist, and drummer, was a fresh face to the indie rock world. Over the course of one whirlwind year, they garnered wild local acclaim after playing contagiously energetic shows around the campus of Syracuse University. The band landed a performance slot at the famed New York City CMJ (College Media Journal) Music Marathon and toured the United States opening for popular established acts including Editors and Art Brut. Ascending to such prominence within a year of forming is no small feat.
In 2007, Ra Ra Riot recorded and released their debut, six-song EP on an independent label, and acquired a spot at the renowned South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas alongside Pete Townshend of The Who, David Byrne of The Talking Heads, and a myriad of indie and alternative rock's best (Spoon, Cold War Kids, Kings of Leon, and Bloc Party all performed).They continued to tour on their own, headlining their first US solo tour that year. That June, after a show in Providence, Rhode Island, their drummer, John Ryan Pike, went missing. The next morning, June 2, 2007, his body was found in nearby Buzzards Bay. He had drowned. In a statement, the band mourned, "This has felt like the unraveling plot of a tragic piece of fiction… nothing would have prepared us for such an immense loss."
• • •
What is a band? In Ra Ra Riot's case, a band is a family of musicians who learn from each other while attempting expression through music. Instead of halting their meteoric rise to prominence, the band solemnly soldiered on for the remaining half of 2007. That December, they signed to Barsuk Records, the prominent mini-major independent label that Death Cab for Cutie once called home, and began work on their debut album, The Rhumb Line. Released in August 2008, the album punctuates a period in which the band's window of opportunity was smashed wide open by a brick hurled hard from the depths of nowhere. Could a cold wind of change sweep this band off its feet?
Baroque-tinged first single "Ghost Under Rocks" opens the album with an almost angry, brooding, and heavy dance bass line accented by anxious plucks of the strings that burst into skittering drums and spirit-like backup vocals. Ra Ra Riot seem to intake and release all that they've experienced in the only truly fit of sorrow on the album. When the chorus floods in, wrought with emotion, vocalist Wesley Miles sings "Here you are, you are breathing like little ghosts under rocks/Like notes found in your pockets/Coats of your fathers/Its lost and forgotten". Morbid and ghastly, Ra Ra Riot releases and moves on.
Standouts include the aforementioned "Ghosts", musically recessive, pondering "Can You Tell", jolly "St. Peter's Day Festival", and album centerpiece, "Dying is Fine", which borrows lyrics from an e.e. cummings poem of the same name. "...all I have is too much time,/ To understand./ One can only love,/ Life until its ending./Oh, and I can't forget. ... Death, oh baby,/ You know that dying is fine,". Set against a shuffling smattering of drum, guitar, and flowing strings, this attitude pervades the entirety of the ten song set. It extends its tone to acknowledge all that has affected them, offering an invitation to celebrate what is had and experienced rather than dwell on what is lost.
The album is decidedly uphill from there, not once looking back on the darkness past. Upon each listen, Rhumb Line reveals itself more and more as not only a model for mourning with remembrance and memorial, but the difficulty of the grieving process, and moving on with life itself. Pensive and saddened at start, it recovers into a calm collection of thought before reaching acceptance and a newfound affect in dealing with every day and experience that passes for just one more drop in the bucket. If it pours, the bucket fills, and one is left to decide how much water should be held and remembered. If too much, weight is added and the bucket weighs down. Perhaps, then, the bucket should be mostly emptied. If the bucket becomes too light, what is acquired from toting it around, what is learned?
The Rhumb Line resolves this tricky metaphor with a non-answer in attempting to find companionship, stating, on closer "Can You Tell", "My bed's too big for me/When you turn your eyes/I promise I won't care". At this time, it hasn't been proven, but perhaps, as they always do, someone else could make each drop in the bucket a little sweeter.
Expectations for response to a situation like Ra Ra Riot's are always to dwell in sorrow, and The Rhumb Line does not fail to meet this expectation. However, Ra Ra Riot manages to embrace the breeze blowing through their broken window to achieve something much more monumental, impactful, and sonically intriguing. A solid, meaningful debut album mining all possible for the band, Rhumb Line catches the sextet choosing to forgo letting the world in through a broken window. Instead, they head outdoors to brave whatever gust may steer them one way or another. Basking in and memorializing the shadow cast upon them, Ra Ra Riot reflects with progression as the Sun slowly sets on a day all too short. Beautifully treading lines dark and light, Ra Ra Riot settles in for an evening in the rough to reflect, celebrate the day passed, and find hope for a different tomorrow.
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