MUSIC
ALL TOGETHER NOW Julia Steiner of Ratboys on growing up, looking back and ‘making noise for the ones you love’ BY JEZY J. GRAY
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f something feels familiar about the latest from Chicago indie darlings Ratboys, that’s partly by design. Since its release in late August, The Window — the breakout new LP from the rising band fronted by singer-songwriter Julia Steiner — has thumped the long-running outfit into a new critical orbit with its lived-in blend of emo, power-pop and country-rock holding fresh ideas and time-tested comforts under each arm. “When you meet someone who’s open-hearted and easy to talk to, it’s like you’ve known them for a long time. I’ve felt that way about certain albums … you listen to it, and it just feels like an old friend somehow,” Steiner told Boulder Weekly shortly after the group’s latest was brought into the world via Topshelf Records. “It’s nice to think our music might have that sort of relationship with anyone.” Despite greeting listeners with the warm welcome of a trusted trailhead, The Window is at the height of its powers when it goes off the map. Take the effervescent side-one standout “Morning Zoo,” a rootsy jangle-pop earworm that would have likely been scaled back on past efforts, which becomes denser and more delicious with blooming fiddle saws and honkytonk piano that color the edges of the frame in exciting new hues. “We just had so much time to really let the songs cook — and even with the details after the studio session, like the packaging and thinking about how we wanted to roll it out. We could just be a little bit more intentional,” says the 31-year-old vocalist and guitarist originally from Louisville, Kentucky. “So this record definitely feels like the most complete artistic statement we’ve made so far, the most realized. It’s like a new chapter for us.”
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But there’s more behind Ratboys’ headstrong leap into new sonic territory than the luxury of time. It’s also their first album to be written and recorded as a quartet, adding drummer Marcus Nuccio and bass player Left to right: Dave Sagan, Sean Neumann, Julia Steiner and Marcus Nuccio of the band Ratboys. Photo by Alexa-Viscius. Sean Neumann 24-day stint with Walla at the Hall of write lyrics that were actually quite to double the band’s size from its preJustice studio in his native Seattle. open-ended, so anyone can sort of go vious duo of co-founders Steiner and “He’s also just a complete wizard in on that journey or view their lives Dave Sagan. More cooks in the kitchthe studio who knows how to work all through that lens.” en put gas to the flame on cuts like these old-school tape machines and But on the album’s tearjerker title “Black Earth, WI,” a reflective rock track, Steiner tests the limits of her number that explodes into a sprawling, outboard equipment like the back of his hand. He was an awesome mix of open-ended lyrics with perhaps the arena-ready guitar jam of epic propora music philosopher who we admire, most personal and bruising song of tions. but also someone who knows how to her career. Unspooling a memory of “I had been working on that tune for execute the ideas he’s dreaming up.” sharing final moments with her dying a couple years by myself, and it kind of grandmother through an open window stalled out after a certain point. I just felt at the height of lockdown-era restriclike I couldn’t really get much more out ‘MAKING NOISE FOR THE tions, she sings from the perspective of it on my own,” Steiner says of the ONES YOU LOVE’ of her surviving grandfather as he song featured in the latest installment While lineup changes and studio time looks back on the life and love they of the Rock Band video game series. may have given the music new wings, shared: Sue, you’ll always be my girl. “When we played as a group, the the beating heart of The Window lies in “Even though it does deal with grief, potential for it to be a longer, more Steiner’s subtle but searing lyricism. If loss and saying goodbye, it genuinely meandering jam became possible. That there’s a throughline connecting the feels less like an absence and more wasn’t really a thing when I was playing songwriter’s deceptively breezy turns of like a presence of her on stage with it alone.” phrase, it’s a gnawing sense of the pasTo give this new group effort its richsage of time — looking back as your life me,” Steiner says. “When we play the song, I feel very close to her memory. est studio expression, the band enlistchanges, and considering it as a whole. It’s just so amazing and powerful how ed superstar producer and former That much is clear off the jump with a music can do that — kind of bring Death Cab for Cutie guitarist Chris simple bar from the album opener, someone back, briefly.” Walla. Steiner says working with the “Making Noise for the Ones You Love”: DIY veteran helped the band unlock I get sad / when I look back / at all the new sonic ideas through a heady mix time / we thought we had. of curiosity and adventurousness that “It’s kind of the thesis statement for ON THE BILL: Ratboys with brought the album’s 11 songs into that whole idea: taking stock of these Another Michael. Saturday, sharp new relief. important relationships and kind of Oct. 21, 8 p.m. Globe Hall, “I think he saw that we were willing zooming out and witnessing them in 4483 Logan St., Denver. $20 to go there with him,” she says of the totality,” she says. “The goal was to OCTOBER 19, 2023
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