Hometowns
Saddle Creek
As their name implies, there had to be some advantage to growing up in rural Alberta. And there is: it apparently inspires A+ indie pop. The Rural Alberta Advantage’s debut album, Hometowns, finally available to the masses on Saddle Creek, has the band sounding like a poetically hung-over Pixies. The album ranges from hipster mountain songs (“Rush Apart”) to spastic, jangly power pop (“The Dethbridge in Lethbridge”) to what can only be described as post folk (“Don’t Haunt This Place”) all within the span of the first four songs. The band’s aesthetic also rings of that point in the early-mid ‘90s when all of the coolest bands in the world (The Breeders, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Sonic Youth, etc.) were just about the biggest bands in the world. It’s unlikely that any other band this year will manage to put out an album that’s both so catchily sing-alongable and so legitimately fucking good. Izzy Cihak