Earlier this week, Ruby Haunt released their fifth full-length album, titled Tiebreaker. Since 2015, the Los Angeles based duo – made up of Wyatt Innis (vocals, lyrics) and Viktor Pakpour (composition, production) – have captured complex emotions through their beautifully produced EPs and albums, each with their own individual aura; it’s energy emanates from the moment you lock eyes with the album cover, always displaying a place you’re not entirely sure exists – a church in the snow with a neon-red cross shining into the night, an expanse of road surrounded by trees at the peak of dusk, and as is the case for Tiebreaker, a small white house with the lights on in the middle of nowhere, an old white Ford parked alongside to match. There’s a similar bright haziness and addictive uncertainty within the tracks, almost as if time – or perhaps, reality – is challenged during their duration, no matter if the tone embraces dream pop, new wave, or something in between.
“Prairie Fire,” our favorite from the new album, evokes something that’s difficult to put in words – there’s a nostalgia that sits potent and heavy within its foundation, ironic considering that it is built up of feather-light piano and guitar, as well as Innis’s hushed, earnest vocals. It is the comparably unnerved narrative that gives the track a brilliant tension; throughout the song, the idea of needing to escape from something, from somewhere, and starting anew (“gonna throw it away/ gonna throw my whole past away / gonna drive real far / gonna steal my big brother’s car”) is highly pronounced, and even more haunting when adjacent to that aforementioned soft piano. He admits and repeats “I’m gonna leave it all/ gonna leave it all if I can,” that idea hanging in the air as the track delicately fades out, and you can’t help but listen intently, as if watching a car as it slowly disappears from view.
Tiebreaker is out now.
photo courtesy of artist
kid with a vinyl 