Ratboys are better than ever on Singin’ To An Empty Chair

Forming as a duo over a decade ago and growing into a quartet, the Chicago group started out with more-than-solid records but took their greatest leap forward with 2023’s The Window. Emotionally driven and deeply personal but packed with fuzzy indie goodness, twangy riffs, and surprisingly sick solos, it set a new bar for Ratboys to clear.

They’ve done so and then some with Singin' To An Empty Chair, their sixth studio LP (first for country oriented New West Records) and best by some distance. The initiated will find everything they’ve come to love present and correct, and for new listeners, it’s the perfect primer for a band who mostly work in two modes: 90s-leaning alt-rock, and Americana that swaggers and swoons in turn. In the first camp is “Know You Then”, a punchy number with the LP’s chunkiest choruses; in the latter is “Open Up”, a sparkling pop cut that the Mutt Langes of this world would be proud to produce. And they’re not above mixing the two, either: for sheer earworm credentials, “Penny In The Lake” is solid gold writing, from its razor sharp trebley guitar lines to Julia Steiner’s singsong melody and some instantly catchy lyrics: “Peace and love to drive my car / Baby you’re my Ringo Starr.”

More recently, though, Ratboys have started to indulge their urge to jam on out, and are they ever good at it. The clear highlight of The Window, “Black Earth, WI”, was a sprawling composition that shifted through the gears for a solid eight minutes, peaking with some of the finest, funnest fucking around 2023 had to offer. “Light Night Mountains All That” falls a touch short of that tune’s length, but it makes up for those shortcomings in pure ferocity. The whole gang plays to the point of exhaustion. Marcus Nuccio in particular knocks lumps out of his drumkit. and Dave Sagan’s guitar takes no less of a whacking (in live performances he seems to essentially have a free role to do whatever he sees fit, which is nice work if you can get it). For intensity alone, it may be their finest song to date.

What sets this release apart most particularly is its structure overall. The first five cuts land mostly in the sparky, uptempo range, with early single “Anywhere” a particularly sugary treat. “Strange Love”, right at the middle of the tracklist, serves as a palette cleanser, the closest Ratboys have come to full-on country, albeit in a Mick Jaggery semi-pastiche fashion.

The back half then delves into far more serious, personal, and heavy spaces. Most notable is “Just Want You To Know The Truth”, a saga of a piece that’s gripping, dramatic, and ultimately cathartic in its lyricism and musical build and release. Like on The Window’s eponymous tune, Steiner deals with familial trauma in her words. This isn’t a dishy song, but the foundations of a short story are all there as she explores a relationship blighted by incident. The stately slide guitars allow for reserved balladeering right up until it takes a turn: “Once you had left home, we cleaned out the house / Came upon some skeletons that none of us knew shit about.” It’s a line all the more impactful for what we’re not told; moments later, the guitars curdle into thick distortion and low down, thunking chords. It’s Gene Clarke meets late 00s Built To Spill, and if the harmonised oooh-oohs at the end are a tasteful touch too many, it’s otherwise a pretty fantastic southern rock opera.

And they’re not done there. The album closes with the pretty, gently hopeful “At Peace In The Hundred Acre Wood”, but the real climax comes on the track before. “Burn It Down” is another whopper, stretching out over seven minutes with violent guitar work of which Crazy Horse-era Neil Young would approve. Thematically it’s drenched in roots-deep institutional failure, and Steiner’s deadpan delivery of the mantra “We’ve gotta burn it down” is all the more powerful for her worldweary inability to raise her voice amid such all encompassing frustration.

Ratboys have been a perennially underrated indie act for the best part of a decade, a steadily excellent band on the verge of proverbial explosion. With the hooks, heart, and heaviness packed into Singin’ To An Empty Chair’s 50 mins, their time could well be now.