The Rural Alberta Advantage

Toronto trio The Rural Alberta Advantage weaves sleepy and spare melodies against ornate percussion, pairing a sighing organ with knee-weakening strings and cooing female harmonies. The band’s 2008 self-released debut, Hometowns (reissued last year by Saddle Creek Records), sounds a bit like it was crafted by The White Stripes, if they weren’t so hung up on rubbing your face in how sparse their band is. The band’s new album, Departing, refines that sound and blows it up further, augmenting the band’s Neutral Milk-spiked folk-pop formula with the serrated guitar stomp of “Muscle Relaxants” or the frigid twinkle of “North Star.”

Updated 11/03/2011