Michigan’s Frontier Ruckus is pretty much the best band in the world right now. I joined the party rather late maybe a couple of years ago and when the previous album Eternity of Dimming came out in early 2013, they completely won my heart over. I kept on listening to that wonderful thing throughout the year and it was clearly my favourite album of that year. Despite all that new music that keeps on coming through the doors and windows that album is something that I still return to on almost weekly basis and still play a couple of songs from it each time I’m on DJ duty at Flavour of the Month club.
Their fourth album Sitcom Afterlife came out yesterday and after listening to it about 8 or 9 hours today, I can already confirm that it’s another wonderful album. This time they’ve gone into more melodic direction and even namedropped most of my all-time favourites like Big Star, Teenage Fanclub and Matthew Sweet as influences. It looks like they are onto me or something. It’s still pretty far from your typical pop record though. It’s not as lyrically heavy as Eternity of Dimming, but it still has more words than I can count. So we are certainly not going into that “She loves you yeah yeah” -territory. This new more melodic side fits nicely into their unique sound galore and the end result is once again magnificent. You are going to need this album. It’s now out on Quite Scientific.. and it’s also out and available in Finland, so I’m going to pick my copy from the local 8raita record store when it arrives. Here are a couple of songs that tell you much more than my pointless ramblings. Bathroom Stall Hypnosis and Crabapples in the Century’s Storm from the new album.
