Ra Ra Riot

After being a band for a decade, it’s easy to get disillusioned with the tedium of adulthood, but Need Your Light, the fourth full-length from RaRa Riot, is the sound of a band being reinvigorated by their own existence. Correspondingly, the album sees the group—which originated in Syracuse but has now dispersed all over the country—getting back to their house party roots without abandoning the more heady soundscapes they explored with 2013’s Beta Love. The result is an album that’s celebratory without being saccharine, and that sees the group collectively mining their prior experiences to craft something that looks toward the future with an optimistic gaze. Lyrically, Need Your Light parallels the transitional nature of the members’ lives as they enter their thirties and begin leaving Brooklyn to start families without abandoning the band that they’ve spent their lives cultivating. “It’s more of a grown-up record, but with our still invariably raucous attitude,” Miles explains, adding that this evolution was entirely organic. In other words, the aforementioned “ Bouncy Castle” may revolve around an adolescent’s first erection, but it’s not merely an attempt at humor. “On this album we talk about serious things in kind of a funny context, but it’s presented very earnestly,” Santos says. “We really tried to have that type of balance and dichotomy on all of these songs.”

Photo Credit: Rowan Daly