Last month Frontier Ruckus released their their much anticipated fifth album Enter the Kingdom, and now the literary Indie-Americana outfit are heading to these shores to promote it.
As part of their UK tour the Michigan-based mob will be live at Northampton Lamplighter this Saturday (March 11).
Enter the Kingdom serves as an almost desperate invitation into the band’s most recurrent setting: the suburban American household. It is immediately apparent, however, that the emphasis this time is not so much on idyllic nostalgia but the very real and present tense disintegration of a personal kingdom once thought permanent.
We are thrust into stained living rooms where dads search for work on Craigslist, carports prowled by drunken ex-spouses returning with dubious motives, megachurch rec rooms marked by lust and disrepair.
Songwriter Matthew Milia has explained the album as a rather literal depiction of his father losing his job and relying on disability checks to retain a tenuous grasp on his childhood home. The specificity with which this is conveyed to the listener is harrowing at times, though never in full abandonment of a dark and balancing sense of humour.
Anna Burch’s harmonies return once more to add a crucial softness to Milia’s rough emotional edges. David Jones’ jangly musical counterpoints combine with Zachary Nichols vast array of instrumentation and string arrangements to achieve Frontier Ruckus’ most sophisticated and deliberate sound yet.
Recorded in Nashville with founding Wilco drummer Ken Coomer, Enter the Kingdom sees the band eloquently mixing their diverse influences of 60s folk rock and 90s power pop into a truly poignant, accessible tonic of sadness and sweetness.
Tickets are booking now.
