★★★★★
Syracuse baroque pop band Ra Ra Riot have ditched their orchestral sounds for synthesizers and big pop melodies, which is bound to throw many of their fans for a loop. Even more questionable is their decision to draw explicit inspiration from the writings of cyberpunk novelist William Gibson and futurist Ray Kurzweil, making for some truly cringe-worthy lyrics. I guess if you know you're going to alienate a good portion of your listeners, you might as well go all the way...
- nowtoronto.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
Music Reviews
Ra Ra Riot Beta Love
(Barsuk)
Buy it from Insound
Ra Ra Riot's last album, The Orchard, was a disappointment due to both a lack of innovation and a weaker set of songs than the band's excellent debut, The Rhumb Line. This time around, changes galore are afoot. The biggest impact to the group's sound was the loss of cellist Alexandra Lawn, who left the band in February 2012...
- www.noripcord.com
2013-02-25
★★★★★
Dutifully, I must report that the first two songs of Beta Love are not very good--they are simple and dance-y and, frankly, don't require or deserve the repeated listens they are tracklistedly expected to receive. However, they are not like the rest of the album. The third track, "Beta Love," and every song that comes after, work dexterously together to build a narrative about the loneliness and demanding expectations that come with romantic relationships: "When I call, I wonder/I run, yeah I...
- filtermagazine.com
2013-02-20
★★★★★
Reviews
Use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard to move between posts quickly and easily. If you're looking for a good place to start, check out our roundup of the best songs of 2012. words by JEAN-LUC MARSH
"Binary Mind"
In order to understand Beta Love, one must first understand a bit of the history of Ra Ra Riot. Since 2010's The Orchard, Ra Ra Riot has been in a state of flux...
- prettymuchamazing.com
2013-02-11
★★★★★
Review Summary: Dance monkey dance! Clichés suck, but damn if Beta Love doesn't qualify for the old "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage. Beta Love itself is sort of a cliché as it is, its music resembling the same kind of rote, brain-dead saying that is force-fed you throughout life at moments that might make you think the dystopian world of Office Space isn't too far away...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2013-02-04
★★★★★
Ra Ra Riot's third studio album, 2013's Beta Love, finds the Syracuse outfit delivering an electronic, keyboard-heavy effort that still retains much of the melodic songcraft and orchestral influence that marked their previous work. Having parted ways with cellist Alexandra Lawn in 2012, Ra Ra Riot were surely at a creative crossroads during the recording of Beta Love...
- www.allmusic.com
2013-01-25
★★★★★
5
Worst New Music
Release Date: January 25, 2013Label: Barsuk
Ra Ra Riot Was it necessary to hit the panic button so soon? On their captivating 2008 debut The Rhumb Line and 2010's milder The Orchard, the Syracuse, New York-spawned Ra Ra Riot crafted nimble chamber pop with the soaring energy of a rousing stadium anthem, minus the thudding insistence...
- www.spin.com
2013-01-25
★★★★★
When the band Ra Ra Riot announced their new album drew inspiration from "futurist Ray Kurzweil's musings on technological singularity and transhumanism," it was clear a tonal shift was in store. The group's baroque-pop sound, beautifully showcased on 2008's The Rhumb Line, and then rehashed on 2010's The Orchard, was due for a shakeup. But on Beta Love, Riot's first release since the departure of cellist Alexandra Lawn in early 2012, they sound like a different band altogether...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-01-24
★★★★★
On their woefully underrated first two albums, Ra Ra Riot worked their trademark art-pop sweet spot, layering emotive strings and dexterous rhythms underneath Wes Miles's handsome, boy-next-door vibrato. But mere seconds into "Beta Love," the bone-rattling electro-pop title track from their weirdest, hookiest album yet, the quartet flaunts a pair of head-scratching new influences: robots and Katy Perry...
- thephoenix.com
2013-01-23
Loading...
