It's one of my ongoing goals in life to abolish bad music by promoting and pimping good music. To that end, I periodically take a break from my witty social/political commentary to highlight some tunes that are worthy of your valuable time.
This post's subject is an up and coming band out of Provo, Utah. I know what you're thinking, nothing good can come out of Provo, and normally I would agree. At first, I too was skeptical. My buddy Chris told me about them so I went to amazon and downloaded the track "Elizabeth." My first take was that it was stunningly dark and beautiful. I downloaded the rest of the album and took it with me for my saturday run. I put the album on shuffle for the last leg and was absolutely blown away. This is one of the best freshman efforts by a band, big label or indie I have heard in a long time.
Lead singer Isaac Russell, may only be 17, but his lyrics and voice have a maturity well beyond his years. The instrumentation is not complicated or fancy, but seems to fit organically. There's not a spare note on the album and it works to focus you on Russell's voice. The sound is rooted in folk, but still hard to categorize, The best description I can give you is that many of these songs would in no way feel out of place on a Damien Rice, Elliot Smith, Nick Drake, or even a "Lonesome Death of Hattie-Carol"-era Dylan. Be warned, these songs are not for the faint of heart, as death, loneliness and alienation abound in an album that Elliott Smith might find dark.
I searched for a way to embed a decent sounding audio clip, sadly youtube doesn't have much to offer. I found this acoustic session on their myspace page which I'm posting solely because it has the best audio quality. The song is not bad, but I find some of their other tunes a bit more likeable. I encourage you to scope their myspace page (yes, I am violating one of my sacred blogger rules and directing people to visit myspace) and download their album. It's going for about 8 bucks on Amazon's mp3 section. If you want to take a song for a test drive, download the first track, "Why" and I defy you to not like it. It's freaking infectious. If you catch me on messenger I will gladly share a track with you on condition that if you life it you will go back and buy it. I am on the Ruru bandwagon, and I may have gotten whiplash jumping on it so fast. Ruru, count yourselves +1 fan in the vegas area.
Ruru on myspace, click here
The band's website, click here.
There might not be many posts in the next two weeks for finals, but look for posts about graduation, bar exams, and torture in the near future. Peace out.
7 comments:
Ha! I actually saw them (him) at Muse Music once or was it the Velour. I know... I know... I know... I will give him pretty good, but I wasn't wildly impressed.
No way, I love this album. I'm forcing you to listen to the whole thing. It is at least 5x better than Damien Rice's last album
nice choice. have you heard of joshua james? he produced ruru's album and I think his stuff is a little better.
I have heard a little, but I honestly didn't like it as much.
I agree that it doesn't suck and is better than 'pretty good'. I'll be wild and say good. I am just surprised you haven't posted your review on amazon yet.
You do remember how Damien Rice's last album sucked, correct? My rendition of "Mama's Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Cowboys" in the shower is better than his last album. And shame on you. Joshua James is truly great.
Hey, that album had some good songs on it. Besides, I am officially declaring your taste in music suspect as you did not immediately embrace "Prisoner in my Room"
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