THE RURAL ALBERTA ADVANTAGE
When New Yorkers—or Angelenos, or people from anywhere, really—look for new indie music, it’s easy to fall back to Brooklyn, which has been reliably churning out bands of the genre for the past decade. But go a little farther west, and a lot farther north, and one could locate the astounding Toronto-based trio, the Rural Alberta Advantage, whose second album, Departing, will be released this March.
The band consists of Paul Banwatt, Amy Cole, and Nils Edenloff, whose home province provides the group’s namesake and the backdrop for Departing (as it did for their debut album, Hometowns). But the group has undercut their chosen setting with the deftness and sophistication of their songwriting. Each tune—odes to lost loves, buried friends, and the hardship of wilderness—is an impassioned cry, delivered with such driving force that even their ballads become anthems.
The stampede of power comes from Edenloff’s trademark soulful plaint, complemented by Cole’s country-inspired, airy harmonies—with Banwatt balancing out the folk with his charged, dramatic rhythms. The RAA aren’t chasing the big-city lights, but instead find cause in endless ice and prairie flats, ghost towns and solitude. “Alberta is a pretty amazing place,” Banwatt explains. “Parts of it are like North Texas; there’s the cowboy culture and, with the oil-based economy, it’s pretty right-wing. But there are also parts of it where you can drive for hours and hours through untouched beauty.”
Recent inductees to Saddle Creek, where they signed in 2009, the RAA now sit alongside Bright Eyes and Sebastien Grainger on the Omaha-based label. Saddle Creek’s hands-off approach gave them more creative freedom, but the band didn’t go too wild. “They are super laid-back,” Banwatt says. “I don’t know if it’s a Nebraska thing, but they have been really encouraging and helpful throughout the process. They have put a lot of trust in us, which helps us because we don’t want to disappoint.” As to be expected, Saddle Creek gave the album a more powerful, broad sound, but not enough to lead it astray from the band’s first release.
“With [Departing], there is certainly an extension of themes,” Banwatt continues, “and some of the songs are from the same era. The two albums are very connected
thematically. It was as though we were trying to finish the story that was started in Hometowns. It was as if we had more to say.”
Departing is out now from Saddle Creek Records. The Rural Alberta Advantage perform at the Bowery Ballroom tonight.
