Over the course of the past 10 or so years-- from Neutral Milk Hotel to Arcade Fire to Bright Eyes-- winking detachment has ceded an increasing amount of indie rock ground to unmockable earnestness. Next in that line of serious, and seriously emotive, songwriters are the Rural Alberta Advantage. The Toronto-based trio, led by born-and-bred Albertan Nils Edenloff, has created an affecting debut that's full of nostalgic songs about hometowns (hence its title) and heartbreaks, marrying salt-of-the-earth acoustic rock to energetic rhythms and grand orchestral arrangements. Even Edenloff's nasal, impassioned singing and lyricism are practically naked in their straightforward sincerity.
Though these tracks may be serious in content and delivery-- "Frank, AB" even nods to the titular mining town's deadly 1903 landslide-- they are buoyed by majestic arrangements. All 13 songs on Hometowns are built on a foundation of quirky synthesizers and sober acoustic guitars, but the drums (which are front-and-center in the mix on so many of these songs) sprint with breathless insistence on "Four Night Rider", some elegant strings add organic warmth to the skittering rhythmic intensity of "Don't Haunt This Place", and the glittery innocence of the acoustic arrangement adds whimsy to the earthy stomp of "Rush Apart". The band's theme song, "The Ballad of the RAA", combines all these elements for a thumping gem of rich, mournful cello, hopeful glockenspiels, bittersweet synths and even a surprising a cappella moment.
The lyrics are the plainspoken, wistful longing for the details of small-town life on the prairie. With odes to the night sky as seen from a particular part of Alberta or descriptions of an old apartment, Edenloff mourns for relationships and homes lost or gives voice to the uncertainty one feels when moving on from people or places. Given his reedy tones and preoccupation with the past, it would be easy to compare RAA to Neutral Milk Hotel (the death-haunted lyrics of horn-studded "Luciana" make it the track most easily confused for a lost Jeff Mangum opus). But with more intensely vigorous drumming, more obviously personal lyrics, and a more blatant interest in glossy electro-pop, Edenloff's band carves out their own niche. It is one that masterfully blends the masculine and the feminine, the refined and the coarse, the dark and the bright.
Hometowns ends with "In the Summertime", a solemn ballad (the lone true ballad of the whole collection) of droning organs and heartbeat drum thumps that's one part Postal Service synthesized sentimentality, one part final-merry-go-round-ride-of-the-summer calliope melody. In barely two and a half minutes the trio evokes the serenading cicadas and sticky skin of uncertain but excited young lovers. "In your summer dress, I was holding you, but you were holding less/ It's not the words, it's the ones you stress/ I love you is I love you, just don't love me less", sings Edenloff, proving why the Rural Alberta Advantage were known as the best unsigned band in Canada before Saddle Creek snapped them up and re-released this debut. And it's a good thing they did; songs this good deserve to be heard by audiences as large as their sonic scope.
