My Favourite Albums - Hometowns

Hometowns is the debut album from The Rural Alberta Advantage. Released in 2008 and then re-released in 2009 after the band signed with a new & bigger label.

The Rural Alberta Advantage, from here on out I'll just refer to them as The RAA, is a three piece Canadian band made up of Nils Edenloff, (guitar and vocals), Amy Cole, (backing vocals, keyboards and percussion), and Paul Banwatt (drums).

Amy Cole, Paul Banwatt & Nils Edenloff (l-r)

If you read the last installment of Sunday Music you'll have seen, and heard, Don't Haunt This Place from Hometowns. It's one of my favourite songs from the album but it's not necessarily representative of the whole album, at least musically. I'm not sure there is one song that's representative of the musical styles on the album.

 The Dethbridge in Lethbridge

Lyrically however the album covers the same ground regardless of the music. The songs are about longing for something lost. A man in Toronto looking back at his past in Alberta and writing about that. So the lyrics are about things lost. Things left behind. A simpler way of life that we have when we're younger; soon enough to be replaced by the more complicated adult world. And it's a world that can never be revisited. Even if you go back to those places you've changed even if the places haven't. It's nostalgia, the remembering of things we loved that are gone.

Four Night Rider

Of course the problem with nostalgia can be that it leads to a refusal to grow up. Always looking back at the past is the easiest way to miss the present. This is not a trap that I personally feel Hometowns fall into. It's not an album about nostalgia as much as it's an album about living. Partially of this comes from the lyrics but mostly I think it comes from Paul Banwatt's drumming. All three members of the band are skilled musicians worthy of praise and the band works together in a perfectly complimentary way. All that said; Banwatt may be the best drummer around at the moment. In my opinion he's certainly vying with The Bad Plus' Dave King for the title. His drumming is always flawless, always driving the band along but never straying to far ahead. It gives the album a much needed vitality.

Luciana

Nils Edenloff's vocals do somewhat sound like Jeff Magnum's. The RAA however aren't another band trying to be the next Neutral Milk Hotel; they are just uniquely themselves and Hometowns is the perfect, (I know I've over-used that word), and expression of that. In a world where it's easier to tear things down and make snarky, pithy comments, (something I am very guilty of) this is a sincere album by a sincere band. If there is one song that perfectly sums up this album it's In The Summertime. A song about the past, dealing with the present optimistically, and looking forward to the future. Driven along by Banwatt's heartbeat drumming accomponied by Amy Cole's keyboards and finishing off the song, and the album, with her vocals.

In The Summertime

Your music collection is a much poorer place without Hometowns.