With their latest album, Hurray for the Riff cements their place as one of contemporary music's best chroniclers of life on the road.
Alynda Segarra, the creative force behind Hurray for the Riff Raff, left their home in New York City at the age of 17. They would spend the next portion of their life traveling the country hopping freight trains.
The Past is Still Alive takes you deep into Segarra's history, with places they visited and characters they met popping up across the album's 11 songs.
On "Snakeplant (The Past is Still Alive)" the memories come thick and fast, describing camping on a superfund site, drinking "hundred proof" liquor, and stealing food when hungry. In the chorus Segarra sings, "They don't even really know my name, I'm so happy that we escaped from where we came." Despite the hardships you would expect living on the outside of society, there was also the freedom and community they sought when leaving home.
But life is never all sunshine, and Segarra's skill as a songwriter lies in tying vivid depictions of the past into their present life. In the case of "Snakeplant," it revolves around the fentanyl crisis. Many of their friends from that period have passed away and Segarra is fully in the present when they say "test your drugs, remember Narcan."
"Buffalo" is another standout, this time moving between personal anecdotes and big picture questions about humanity. Beginning with a story of a southwestern trip "to the edge of the pueblo," Segarra switches to questions of the human race in the second verse, asking if we will go like the woolly mammoth, dodo, Bachman's warbler, little Mariana's fruit bat, and bridled white-eye.
After these examples of now extinct animals, it is the buffalo that gives Segarra hope, and of course they have story of someone they know making field recordings of a buffalo herd "up north in Minnesota" to bring the story back to the personal.
With such a heavy focus on the stories in the lyrics, Segarra and producer Brad Cook, chose subtlety over force in the sound of the album. Avoiding the synths and drum machines of the previous album LIFE ON EARTH, The Past is Still Alive maintains a rootsy and earthy Americana sound throughout.
Hurray for the Riff Raff's music warrants repeated listening. Every song on the new album is a collection of brief images that come together into a larger whole. They are a window into Segarra's past that also explain their present as a non-binary BIPOC musician.
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