This is volume 2 of the Should-Haves, music that should have been on my Favorites of 2008 lists but wasn’t (Vol 1 is here), and I think my last words on 2008.
I didn’t like the Rural Alberta Advantage at first listen even though I was seeing some rave reviews elsewhere. Then I pulled the full CD Hometowns up on my mp3 player while I was painting a room at Indie Mom’s new place, and I changed my mind. Sometimes it helps to try music in different ways: on earphones, in the car, on the stereo system, while you’re doing something else.
What I suddenly heard that had escaped me before was the influence of Neutral Milk Hotel, whom I love. You can’t imitate Jeff Mangum, and you can’t fake NMH. The only successful way to use NMH’s influence is to absorb what Mangum was trying to do and channel your own creativity through it by using some of the same tools. Rural Alberta Advantage have done that and done it well by delivering the same depth of believability that made NMH great. You can hear it in the way Nils Edenloff belts out his slightly irritating vocals. You can hear it in the structure of the lyrics. You can hear it in Paul Banwatt’s clattering attacks on his drum kit. Entirely original to RAA are Amy Cole and the songs’ subject of living in rural Canadia.
Hometowns should definitely have filled out my top 20 of 2008. When I put it on now, I always play it two or three times in a row, and there’s no way I can pick a single favorite song. It’s all good, and way too short. If RAA hasn’t hit you square between the eyes yet, give it a chance. “Drain the Blood” is a good place to begin. NMH lovers must hear “The Deathbridge in Lethbridge” and the fierce 7th track, “Luciana.”
Rural Alberta Advantage: Drain the Blood from Hometowns (2008)
MySpace | Website | Label: outrageously unsigned | eMusic interview
Buy: RAA Website (Paypal), and eMusic
Photo by Vince Wong. From left: Cole, Banwatt, and Edenloff
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