Liveliness was a big selling point for Born Ruffians when they were coming out of the gate. Dewing the ceilings of small basement venues from coast to coast with perspiration became something of their calling card in the run up to the release of their first album, Red, Yellow & Blue in 2008. On tour early in that year with rapper — and former poet laureate of Edmonton, Alberta — Cadence Weapon, Born Ruffians might not have seemed the most natural pairing at first, but their hyped up vibe was enough to bridge the noticeable gap between their manic Pixies yelp rock and Roland Pemberton’s limber rhymes.
When Born Ruffians were a nascent trio from Midland, Ontario, went for the less-is-more model with a freewheeling exuberance that seemed to give them a kind of loose kinship with other bands who were gaining attention at that time like the San Francisco duo the Dodos, whose breakout album Visitor was released two weeks after Red, Yellow & Blue. Even if it was something less than the zeitgeist, Born Ruffians (who not long after added a fourth member) were a part of a particular spirit that went cartwheeling through indie rock in the late-2000s. The energy of youth, of course, is easy to spend but more difficult to focus. Listening back to their first widely heard single, “Hummingbird”, which the band performed on an episode the equally of-the-moment British teenage soap opera Skins, its title felt apt; a lot of wild flapping without really going anywhere.
Say It was received as a sophomore slump on arrival in 2010, while Birthmarks in 2013 was a notable renovation, if not a major reinvention. Still, that album’s lead single, “Needle”, embodied a lingering issue. “Needle” borrowed liberally from Fleet Foxes’ distinct vocal style (coincidence or not, that group had recently gone on hiatus) while the song’s video placed the band in a borrowed city, following singer/guitarist Luke Lalonde on a stroll across an empty Brooklyn Bridge, and getting into hijinks around the Lower East Side and Williamsburg. Having gotten off on a promising foot with their debut before wandering around a bit on the next two, Ruff is a striding arrival. After a decade in the game, Ruff finally solidifies their sonic identity.
It’s not that Born Ruffians’ fourth album is a departure from the wordy whirlwind they’re known for whipping up; more that Lalonde, bassist Mitch Derosier, drummer Adam Hindle, and guitarist/keyboardist Andy Lloyd have honed their strengths as a unit and eschewed what was extraneous. There is a greater clarity in their creative vision. “You’re living a dream/But it don’t live up/Don’t live up,” Lalonde barks on the album’s kick-start, “Don’t Live Up”, hitting a relatable note of dissatisfaction and perhaps dropping a hint of his own conflicting feelings about life in pursuit of music. Songs like “& On & On & On”, “(Eat Shit) We Did It”, and “We Made It” flail and holler out themes of perseverance and eventual triumph.
“One day, you’re gonna make it / Fake it until you make it / We got the rest of our lives / We’ll give all we can”, Lalonde proclaims on Ruff’s rallying cry of a first single, “We Made It.” “& On & On & On” harks to the tried-and-true metaphor of a phoenix rising from the ashes. As Derosier recently explained in an interview with Noisey, “(Eat Shit) We Did It”, which has possibly the most memorable (and easily the most casually vulgar) refrain on an album with more than its share of instant-winner choruses, got its title by accident: a misunderstanding of a lyric sung by Lalonde on a demo. Humor won out over practicality, and the song, if not ready for daytime radio, is bound to become a crowd favorite.
That decision is indicative of the general attitude the band took to making Ruff, which was to worry less about what might work commercially and to instead go with what came naturally. Even if that means promoting the record’s impending release with watchRUFF.com, a highly abstract video art project that stretches twelve hours worth of fleeting VHS footage over a month of streaming online (on one afternoon the footage was of what appeared to be a big green plant encircled by neon light on a hardwood floor, while the next evening there was a guy in a suit and skinny tie in a high rise room with the Empire State Building in the background) they stick to their guns. In the process, they’ve landed on a fertile middle ground between their spark-and-buzz beginnings and those first wearier-but-wiser bends in life’s learning curve.