★★★★★
The last few months have been a busy but rewarding period for Toronto trio the Rural Alberta Advantage. Just releasing their sophomore album, Departing, the group's been touring all over North America, including high-profile slots at SXSW and Coachella. After finishing up their U.S. tour, the RAA played their biggest hometown show yet, to a well-sold-out crowd at The Phoenix with locals the Hooded Fang as main support...
- www.punknews.org
2011-05-23
★★★★★
There's nothing missing on the surface of The Rural Alberta Advantage's second album, Departing. A mere 33 minutes long, its ten songs are proof that the three-piece can nail one hook-driven arrangement after another. All based on the same two-sided template, either shimmering, buzzing layers of pop or stripped-down, warm folk, you might have heard very similar tunes elsewhere...like perhaps on their debut album Hometowns...
- drownedinsound.com
2011-05-05
★★★★★
It's not just their name that's geographically precise: the songs of the Rural Alberta Advantage are vividly specific in their sense of place. Frontman Nils Edenloff - who grew up in rural Alberta - takes us to "the woods where we first felt God", past "the cemetery where my father tried to start a new life", up the hills where tentative lovers gaze at the north star, imbuing every melancholy word with the nostalgic relief of one who escaped (the band are based in Toronto)...
- www.guardian.co.uk
2011-05-02
★★★★★
On their debut, Hometowns, Toronto's Rural Alberta Advantage sounded like a band in search of an identity. On one track, they were a competent folk-country outfit, on the next, twinkly-eyed synth-poppers. It was a bit of a mess, but there were moments when they seemed to be onto something. So surely the improved focus on Departing must be to their benefit, no...
- thephoenix.com
2011-03-28
★★★★★
If you name yourself "The Rural Alberta Advantage," you better be damn well prepared for people to constantly inquire as to just what it is about a windy, freezing tundra that gives a considerable leg up. Previously, on the excellent Hometowns, it was a rawness that came from a place beyond frostbite, capturing a collection of songs united in that tender yet painful feeling of home--a home with both sweet and sour memories...
- www.filter-mag.com
2011-03-21
★★★★★
The Rural Alberta Advantage's debut, Hometowns, was met with a lot of praise for its bleak, bramble-folk depiction of the brutal, regrettable, and somewhat embarrassing components of a relationship's sour end. It was the stuff that requires a certain amount of inspiration of a besmirched recent memory, and not easily replicated on an album-per-album basis. In case anyone was worried, Nils Edenloff is still overwhelmed with bruised love, but now it's of a different breed...
- www.prefixmag.com
2011-03-14
★★★★★
At the end of Departing, The Rural Alberta Advantage's sophomore album, frontman Nils Edenloff sings about god. Or at least he seems to be; the lyric is sweetly ambiguous, referring as much to rapturous memories of young sex and love as to a spiritual awakening. Conflation of spiritual and physical ecstasies is nothing new -- lineage of this tradition descends from "Song of Songs," to Songs of Innocence and Experience, to Songs of Leonard Cohen...
- tinymixtapes.com
2011-03-07
★★★★★
In many ways, this Toronto, ON trio are emblematic of the "Canadian Rock Band," as we understand it. Moved from the country to the city? Check. Grew up in earshot of country and folk-rock radio, but chose to rock that sound out? Check. Striving for universal meanings, but sprinkled with the "North Star[s]" and "Coldest Days" of their native land? Check...
- www.exclaim.ca
2011-03-07
★★★★★
The most amazing thing about Departing is that it's potentially better than its companion piece/predecessor, Hometowns. Like on Hometowns, the songwriting here is incredibly and unambiguously strong. This time, though, it's more measured. Listen to the build on Stamp, or marvel at the way Two Lovers mournfully opens and Good Night thoughtfully closes this record and try to disagree. You can't. Where Hometowns was frenetic and immediate, Departing wants you to feel it in your stomach...
- www.hour.ca
2011-03-07
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