Covers for Sunday

Eye Of The Tiger by Rural Alberta Advantage (originally by Survivor). More goodness from The Rural Alberta Advantage, this was the B-side to Drain The Blood. While the original is pretty much the definition of a pump up song this sounds more like a lament of things passed.



New Sensation by Beck, St. Vincent, Daniel Hart, Sergio Dias, Brian LeBarton and Liars (originally by INXS). If you read the Covers for Sunday - Velvet Underground edition you'll have heard some of the covers Beck does as part of his Record Club. So far 5 different albums have been covered, The Velvet Underground & Nico was first and INXS' Kick was fourth. Each album has a different set of musicians on it and they're all worth listening to. If you want to hear them they're all available at the Record Club site.



I'm Waiting by Delta Spirit (originally by Bill Bush). This cover is from their second Daytrotter set, which you can here in it's entirety here.



Folsom Prison Blues by Keb' Mo' (originally by Johnny Cash). It's always difficult to cover a song as classic as this, a song that so many people from different musical tastes have heard and loved, but I think this is an excellent cover.



Born On A Train by Arcade Fire (originally by The Magnetic Fields). One of my favourite covers by Arcade Fire, it's hard to believe that The Magnetic Fields have released their first album 20 years ago.



I'm Goin' Down by Vampire Weekend (originally by Bruce Springsteen). Sometimes when I have iTunes on shuffle things turn up that I had no idea I had on my hard drive. This is one of those songs, I had no idea Vampire Weekend had even covered it, but it turns out it was recorded in September last year.

New Rural Alberta Advantage song - Stamp

One of my favourite bands since I first heard them Rural Alberta Advantage have a new album due to be released in March. Stamp is the first track to be released from the album in it's final form. (Two Lovers and Barnesyard were both played as acoustic songs by Nils Edenloff for Daytrotter). If you enjoyed their debut album Hometowns you'll love this and if you didn't you're a fool, but it's ok you'll still love this.

Stamp (mp3) by Rural Alberta Advantage.

The album's tracklist:

Two Lovers
The Breakup
Under the Knife
Muscle Relaxants
North Star
Stamp
Tornado ‘87
Barnes’ Yard
Coldest Days
Good Night

As a bonus, here are a couple of live versions of tracks from Hometowns, one studio and one gig.

Drain The Blood (mp3) live studio session for The Current 89.3



The Dethbridge in Lethbridge (mp3) live at Wolfe Island Musicfest, 8th August 2009.

More Rural Alberta Advantage

I'm sure most of you are signed up to Daytrotter. If you're no, go and do it now. Or as soon as you've finished reading this. I'm signed up to it as well, but somehow I missed that one of my favourite bands recorded a session there. So, even though it was posted at the start of September I just found about The Rural Alberta Advantage's session today. They performed a couple of songs from their debut album as well as a couple of unreleased tracks, which you can download here:

Two Lovers

Barnesyard

You can read the post and download the rest of the songs from Daytrotter here and if you haven't bought there excellent debut album Hometowns you can do that here

But first, here's another track, this time the album version of Don't Haunt This Place.

The Rural Alberta Advantage

It's undeniable that the way we find music has changed since the internet became available on a widespread basis. Now, you can argue if that's good or bad, but that's for another time, and maybe another blog. But the way we can access music has changed. Some bands, and it seems to me an increasing number, use the internet to reach people that wouldn't normally be able to easily, if it all, get to hear there music. Albums may be streamed or tracks made available.

In the latter category fall The Rural Alberta Advantage. I'd read in a couple of places about them so I went to their website and had a look around. They had 2 songs for download. So I downloaded them and fell in love. I decided to buy their album, Hometowns, but my wife beat me to it and bought me it for Valentine's Day.

It was even better than I'd hoped. Comparisons with Neutral Milk Hotel are often drawn in album reviews and that is valid to a point, especially as lead vocalist Nils Edenloff does sound like Jeff Magnum. But to just listen to it expecting a Neutral Milk Hotel clone does the album a disservice. It's a great album in it's own right. The songs are well written, the playing is great, especially the drumming, and the lyrics are delivered in a way that sounds heartfelt without being overbearing.

Simply put it's an awesome album. The Rural Alberta Advantage were signed to Saddle Creek and the album will be re-issued on CD and LP. it's due for retail release on July 7th, but if you preorder it'll be dispatched on June 23rd, and you get a full digital download on buying the album. I know I'm starting to sound like a commercial for the album now, so I'll stop. But it is really, really good.

Don't Haunt This Place

You can preorder the album here.