Omaha‘s Saddle Creek Records, Rural Alberta drew the
biggest crowd of the night with their sweet and energetic songs about loves
lost, haunted railroad towns, and missed opportunities. Almost reminiscent of a
Bleed American era Jimmy Eat World, it was no surprise to me what their appeal
to this intimate Arizona crowd was. The cute guy-girl vocal pairing of Paul
Banwatt and Amy Cole evoked the emotion-heavy yearning of Jim Adkins and Rachel
Haden, while drummer Nils Edenloff kept the tempo up with chaotic disco dance
beats, which provided an interesting contrast between the subtleties of the
acoustic guitar and keyboards. My main concern for the night was the levels on
their sound. I’m not sure what happened after Shaky Hands left the stage
sounding great, but Rural Alberta had the ill fortune of being too loud at
first. Banwatt’s vocals were almost peaking through the speakers as the crowd
got closer to the stage and at times the guitar was completely overpowered by
the drums and vocals. My only real
gripe was that I didn’t like how their drums sounded. While the technique was
there, I felt like I was listening to a 90s pop-punk band from SoCal with how tightly tuned his toms were. Other than
that, it was a pretty good Monday night.
Last night: Yellow Minute, the Shaky
Hands, and the Rural Alberta Advantage at Rhythm Room.
Better than:
freezing at home while studying for finals.
Random fact: The
band was originally from Mendocino, California…pretty much the marijuana capitol of America!
Further listening: Drummer
Jake Morris used to be in a band called the Joggers, while former member Nathan
Delffs is often in Castanets.
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