Born Ruffians - Beauty's Pride (2025) [Official Digital Download]

A product of the aughts' indie-rock glory days, Canada's Born Ruffians have not just outlasted peers like Tokyo Police Club and Hot Hot Heat, but singer/guitarist Luke Lalonde, bassist Mitch DeRosier and drummer Steve Hamelin are still evolving. While they've outgrown the youthful, nervous-energy racket of Red, Yellow & Blue and the ebullient garage-rock yelp of Uncle, Duke & the Chief, it's not a bad thing. Ninth album Beauty's Pride finds the group—now including keyboardist Maddy Wilde—in an introspective, star-gazing mood. Opener "Mean Time" sets the scene. It's inspired by the Nabokov autobiography Speak, Memory, and the author's idea that, as LaLonde puts it, "your life is essentially a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness, and how we're sort of existing inside of these bookends." It's something LaLonde admits he once would have viewed as "panic-inducing" but now sees as beauty in the brevity. "A sudden burst of chemical bliss/ Fresh plastic and Coca-Cola mist," the always clever lyricist sings over burbling synth rock. He was also listening to Underworld's classic "Born Slippy" at the time and, even if you didn't know that, it's obvious in his staccato-burst phrasing. Sticky "Supersonic Man"—a combo platter of Bowie and Oasis, acoustic guitar warmth and synth buzz—expands on the idea, dreaming that we all fractally continue beyond our last breaths: "Wanna wave goodbye at the end of days/ Become a beam of light/ Shooting through the night into outer space." But, new dad LaLonde has said, he was also imagining a child being rocketed into the world and how "we're all kind of born as aliens." Moody, brief "All My Life" plays with watery ultrasound noises, spacey synth and heavy vocal effects, while "Athena"—featuring LaLonde cartoonishly dragging out the title word—dips into Devo-esque angular New Wave.

TRACKLIST

1. Born Ruffians - Mean Time
2. Born Ruffians - To Be Seen
3. Born Ruffians - What A Ride
4. Born Ruffians - Let You Down
5. Born Ruffians - All My Life
6. Born Ruffians - Athena
7. Born Ruffians - Can We Go Now
8. Born Ruffians - Incoming
9. Born Ruffians - Supersonic Man
10. Born Ruffians - The Knowing Is Easy
11. Born Ruffians - Do
12. Born Ruffians - Hi
13. Born Ruffians - In the Meantime
14. Born Ruffians - Beauty's Pride



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