aaamusic | On 07, Feb 2011

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s third album to date does not do this quiet, Louisiana-based group any favours.  Their MySpace profile labels their style as ‘melodramatic pop’ combined with ‘blues’.  This is an economy of the truth to say the least on listening to their latest offering.

The music can in reality be called dull, pseudo-dramatic and pretentious.  The album does attempt to deal with heavy subject matter such as the track entitled ‘Slow Walk’, which describes the recovery from drug-addiction with lines such as “It’s a slow walk from the bottom to the top” ,but there is consistently the nagging feeling that the artist has no idea of the intricacies involved in such a lifestyle.  It is as if a magazine article dealing with the theme in hand has been converted into a musical format with no emotional input from the artist.

This sense of emotional detachment by the artist from the songs’ content taints the whole album and it, in reality, can be presumed to be in a way ‘melodramatic pop’ music, in the sense that the artist attempts to input more emotional experience into the lyrics than she, in reality, has.  This lends the album a feeling of pretence and thus listening one feels cheated, as if the singer is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.  In this case, it has not worked – maybe in the Deep South it is just the ticket, but here in the more cynical UK it just does not wash.

To be quite honest, the listener is left with the feeling that the artist has nonchalantly refused to acknowledge his/her requirements.  For example, there is nothing new, unique or worthy of interest encapsulated in this album.  The world is awash with this type of music, and it can be at best described as easy-listening, background music that does not deserve prolonged attention as one grows quickly bored of the repetitive nature of the tracks.

This album is definitely not worthy of parting with your hard-earned cash.  Perhaps it goes down better in the southern states of the US (the band is currently touring said states) where good old Bluegrass Americana Acoustic balderdash is more widely accepted, given their less cynical and sardonic nature.

A good example is track ‘Junebug Waltz’, which relies heavily on twangy guitar and plink-plonk (sorry for the invented onomatopoeia) piano, with violins scratching out barndance-esque thematics as the vocals continue to inspire apathy in the listener with lyrics of love  “Oh my little darling, you won’t be mine forever…” so pathetically empty of true sentiment as to be laughable.

To put a positive spin on this review, the vocals are warm and accomplished with allusions to a slightly apathetic Joan Baez and an irredeemably soulless Nina Simone.  If only there was material here worth listening to, where the aforementioned vocalist could really show her true potential, there would be an album worth giving a damn about, but alas there is not.

Leave the mediocre, emotionally vacuous hillbilly music to the Confederates.

Author: Guy Waddington