Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love - Printable Version +- Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com) +-- Forum: Music Discussion (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=4) +--- Forum: Alternative (https://www.music-discussion.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=11) +--- Thread: Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love (/showthread.php?tid=8073)

Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love - Music Head - 28-01-2013 online listen seems I can't escape the synths synth pop heavy here but they call them alternative nothing I liked 1.3 from me and a converted 2.7 from the pros at allmusic from the album - Beta Love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0MREANxNac released Jan 22nd, 2013 Bio - from allmusic Combining indie rock with chamber pop flourishes (courtesy of a small string section), Ra Ra Riot formed while the band's six members were attending college in Syracuse, New York. Milo Bonacci (guitar), Alexandra Lawn (cello), Wesley Miles (keyboard/vocals), John Pike (drums), Mathieu Santos (bass), and Rebecca Zeller (violin) first came together in January 2006, creating an eclectic sound that allowed them to play alongside the Horrors, Bow Wow Wow, and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin within a year of the band's formation. After pulling up stakes and relocating to New York City, the band recorded a self-titled EP and prepared to release it during the summer of 2007. That June, however, Pike died after disappearing one night from a party in Fairhaven, Rhode Island. His body was later found in nearby Buzzard's Bay. Several weeks later, the mourning bandmates issued a statement confirming their continuation as a band. Ra Ra Riot joined the roster at V2 Records later that year before switching their American operations to Barsuk Records, who signed them in May 2008 and released their debut album, The Rhumb Line, in August. Reviews were positive, and Ra Ra Riot spent the better part of a year on the road, where they toured with bands like Death Cab for Cutie and headlined their own performances as well. During a lull in their schedule, the musicians decamped to a peach orchard in upstate New York, where they spent several weeks writing songs and recording demos. Those songs eventually made their way onto The Orchard, Ra Ra Riot's second album, which appeared in August 2010. In 2012, Lawn announced she had left the band. The band did not replace her and began work on new material. In 2013, Ra Ra Riot delivered its third studio album, the more synth pop-inflected Beta Love. Album Review - from allmusic review [-]by Matt Collar Ra Ra Riot's third studio album, 2013's Beta Love, finds the Syracuse outfit delivering an electronic, keyboard-heavy effort that still retains much of the melodic songcraft and orchestral influence that marked their previous work. Having parted ways with cellist Alexandra Lawn in 2012, Ra Ra Riot were surely at a creative crossroads during the recording of Beta Love. However, the remaining bandmembers (vocalist Wes Miles, violinist Rebecca Zeller, guitarist Milo Bonacci, and bassist Mathieu Santos) did not replace Lawn and instead traveled to the warmer climes of Missouri to work with producer/engineer Dennis Herring (Elvis Costello, Modest Mouse) and a handful of guest musicians on crafting a more experimental, synthesizer- based sound. With lyrics and songs inspired by a variety of future-looking sources including author/keyboard inventor Ray Kurzweil and writer William Gibson, Ra Ra Riot employed various synthesizers to complement their already innovative mix of rock and classical instrumentation. The result is that Beta Love, while clearly a move away from the precise chamber pop of 2010's Orchard, is still an immediately infectious, harmonically intriguing album that subtly incorporates Zeller's classically trained violin chops into an even more unified band sound. In fact, Zeller's shiny violin is employed so deftly here, often in tandem with the synth lines, that the focus ends up being more on the overall sound of a song than on any one aspect of an arrangement. Also still a focal point here is Miles' angelic, resonant tenor croon that, matched with lyrics that delve into alienation in a modern world, robot love, and the eternal question of whether or not Androids dream, works as an emotional core for the album. He coos on the ebullient closing track, "I Shut Off," "Who wants a human love? A Death trap? A Suicide club? I do... I do..." While there is definitely an atmospheric, introspective, and somewhat experimental quality to many of the songs on Beta Love, as on the yearning, lyrical ballad "When I Dream," it is undeniably a dance album. Cuts like the bouncy lead-off "Dance with Me" and the positively euphoric title track are wide-eyed, neon-colored anthems that seem to find the perfect balance between Michael Jackson's "Rock with You," ELO's "All Around the World," and Robyn's "Call Your Girlfriend." Which isn’t to say that the album sounds exactly like the work of any one of these artists in particular, but Beta Love does fit nicely alongside works by such similarly inclined contemporaries as Minus the Bear and Young Galaxy; bands who've explored synthesizers and '80s New Wave and adult contemporary as a way to expand their sonic palette. Ultimately though, whether robotic or human, binary or organic, it is Ra Ra Riot's gift for addictive, romantic songcraft that gives Beta Love its heart. Track Listing 1. Dance With Me 2. Binary Mind 3. Beta Love 4. Is It Too Much 5. For Once 6. Angel, Please 7. What I Do For You 8. When I Dream 9. That Much 10. Wilderness 11. I Shut Off Ra Ra Riot - Beta Love - CRAZY-HORSE - 29-01-2013 same old whiney vocals as a million other bands in your link, and yes, way too much 'soul-less' synth stuff in there for me also.....