SQUEEZE

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, many people were hoarding toilet paper and Clorox wipes; Born Ruffians, on the other hand, were hoarding songs. *SQUEEZE* arrives just six months after its predecessor companion *JUICE*, and while the two were born from the same flood of inspiration, these songs aren’t just leftover pulpy bits. In sharp contrast to *JUICE*’s tightly wound energy, *SQUEEZE* finds the Toronto indie-rock trio unspooling and sprawling out in intriguing new directions: The opening “Sentimental Saddle” is a hit of desert-baked stoner jangle that dissolves into a pool of psychedelic textures, while “Waylaid” sees frontman Luke Lalonde engage in a dramatic duet with Hannah Georgas over endless ripples of glistening Cure guitars and an exhilarating motorik coda that sprints straight toward the sun. But the added layers of experimentation never obscure the Ruffians’ peculiar melodic charms: As the Paul McCartney-via-Mac DeMarco serenade “Leaning on You” proves, few bands could pull off a pickup line like “I pissed your name in the snow/’Cause I want you to know that I love you so much” and make it sound so sincere.

Well, hell, we’re guessing you’ve got a little extra time on your hands these days and, fortunately for you, the Ruffians are veritably bubbling over with new music at the moment. The spiky, psych-y SQUEEZE arrives on Oct. 2, 2020, a mere six months after the release last April of the bold ‘n’ brassy JUICE on Yep Roc Records. Rumour even has it there might be some more poised power-pop pulp to come somewhere soon down the line – catch a developing theme here? – but you didn’t hear that from me. Let’s focus on the present for now. Or at least distract ourselves from the ugly realities of the present with another wicked Born Ruffians record, the band’s seventh since guitarist/vocalist Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch Derosier and drummer Steve Hamelin emerged as a fully formed trio of rock ‘n’ roll oddballs from a high school in Midland, Ontario, 16 years ago. Not that SQUEEZE itself is particularly distracted from present-day realities. Although written well before the global pandemic lockdown with which JUICE’s spring release expertly coincided, the new album’s nine songs were birthed in the shadow of Brexit and Donald Trump and, as Lalonde puts it, “thinking about the end of the American empire and these massive global shifts that we’re seeing” and wondering, as the climate goes to Hell and cities erupt in fiery protests and the “One Percent” basically takes another collective shit on our chests every other day, “How long does it take for a full-on revolt? When do the prisoners realize we outnumber the guards?” SQUEEZE, like JUICE, is still yet another document of Born Ruffians’ growing maturity into a less hyperactive and willfully eccentric version of their youthful selves. A concise, multi-stage epic like “Noodle Soup” doesn’t feel forced at all at this point but merely comes naturally to them now after 16 years of pulling off all those left turns and hard angles onstage night after night. As Lalonde coos over wafting brass on album closer “Albatross”: “It’s getting easier to play it softer now / A little softer now…” Born Ruffians don’t have to flaunt their chops these days. They can simply lean into the material and act like the confident and experienced and altogether singular rock ‘n’ roll combo they are without thinking too much about it.

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