REVIEW: RAH RAH – BREAKING HEARTS ALBUM
With the internet increasing the potential audience for musicians to an almost immeasurable degree, it’s sometimes amazing how well contained some things manage to be. Take Saskatchewan sextet Rah Rah, for example. Last year their second full length album ‘Breaking Hearts’ was very well received in their native Canada but nary a peep was heard about them elsewhere in the world. Now the album has received a full and proper world wide release maybe it’s time for all of us that don’t live in the great white north to see what we’ve been missing.
Album opener ‘Arrows’ rips forth with the sparky intensity of ‘We Are Beautiful’ era Los Camepsinos with an added dollop of (North) Americana. It’s a sound that works so well for Rah Rah that you’d happily forgive them if they stuck to the formula for an entire album. However there’s plenty more noises to be made; from the understated broken toy drummer verses and wistful boy/girl vocals of ‘Beaches’ to the oh-my-God-so-twee-my-heart-is-a-kitten minute and a half that is ‘Communist Man’. In an album that includes elements of Cocteau Twins-lite style dream pop to straight ahead noisy indie rock there’s rarely a dull moment. Rah Rah combine influences from 90s scrappy indie pop like Superchunk and Velocity Girl as well as Canadian contemporaries such as Broken Social Scene and Arcade Fire. So if you’re a fan of those groups, or practically anything else in between, there’s probably something for you to enjoy on ‘Breaking Hearts’.
