The first time I heard the Ruby Suns, I was riding in a friend’s car. The first track sounded good, so I asked who it was. The song ended and the next track came on—clearly, this was a mix, because it was a totally different band. “Who’s this?” I asked again. Again, it was the Ruby Suns. I didn’t learn my lesson until after the third track, though I still found myself in disbelief half way through track four. Such was the case for a good while with this genre-bending Aukland, New Zealand-based Sub Pop Records band. But recently, the band has tended to move in a more cohesive direction in realizing their music. On their fourth album, Christopher, Ruby Suns construct synthy, electronic pop throughout.
The album has some shining moments and a few great songs. I was pumped when I first hear the single, “Kingfisher Call Me,” with its slow, pulsing beat, understated dark synths, and soulful chorus. Most of the songs on the record are listenable, even enjoyable, but the careful layers present on the single don’t crop up as much across the songs as one would hope. It’s fair to say Christopher is a solid album that suffers from expectation and potential more than any flaws. As an example, when “Dramatikk” swells and starts to expand, the mix still feels a little thin and underexplored. If you’re hooked on the 80s-derived pop that is dominating the indie landscape right now (Twin Shadow, Memory Tapes, Autre Ne Veut, Wild Nothing, etc.), this record will still scratch an itch, but it won’t expand your world.
Images of youthfulness and immaturity recur in lyrics like “That’s when I realized I never want to live in real life” and song titles like “Futon Fortress.” Melodramatic love occupies the subject matter of more than a few songs such as on “Jump In,” where the narrator’s optimistic plea to “jump in” both literally and metaphorically is cut by the darkness of lines like, “I looked in our future/ I couldn’t look far/ I can’t live it again.”
On Christopher’s final track, “Heart Attack,” the band unfurls a busy, energetic shimmer of electronic pop that utilizes an ascending piano melody and scratchy synth to finally hit the target at which they’ve been aiming. This is the album’s buried gem. Now that the Ruby Suns have started defining themselves more by genre there may be some growing pains as they figure out exactly how to work in this new, cohesive mode.
