It’s hard to tell where one Ruby Haunt release ends and the next one begins; the duo of Wyatt Ininns and Victor Pakpour have been releasing music at a steady pace for the past three years in a way that few bands have. Something must be working here, as they’ve amassed over 100,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.
Stylistically, Ruby Haunt sits somewhere between shoegaze and slowcore. It’s ethereal and vibrant enough to be more robust than folk, but it’s also a bit too lean to be classified as post-rock. But whatever you choose to call it, it is an emotional experience. Indeed, like many groups with a similar emotional slant, lyrics are a bit less consequential. The words are clear enough to understand, but the whispery delivery and sense of lethargy are arguably more powerful than the exact meaning being verbalized.
Immediate comparisons can be drawn to the likes of Red House Painters or Dakota Suite with emotional-laden, masterfully-minimalist arrangements. The songs are melodic, balancing keys and guitar with tight-but-subtle drumming. It feels tender and intimate. The mood is summed up in the album’s cover: down-to-earth, semi-rural, blue hour songs of every day struggles and longing memories. There is no crazy polish or technical showcase of guitar riffs here—it feels like an album for the average person, the kind that someone with moderate guitar training could play along to by ear. It has a specific nearness that makes it feel communal for the listener.
Collectively, these are the longest Ruby Haunt songs to date. The songs simmer more than they drag, and slight melodic variants and subtle layers help things from getting too stale. There is definitely a lot of repetition of parts, but that’s to be expected for the style.
The album does feel a bit too homogeneous at times, given the band’s minimalist approach, but even with their restrained set of tools, varied tempos, drum parts, and piano/guitar interchanges help each song feel somewhat fresh. However, the cohesion of the tracks isn’t necessarily a bad thing—it’s easy to throw Tiebreaker on and sink beneath the ambiance of the songs. Consider it a 37-minute therapy session. These songs are not mentally-demanding. They play well with studying, meditating, or writing. Again, the lyrics are not the center of this album—the mood is.
Tiebreaker is a soothing album that has enough emotional ambiguity to comfort you on your best and worst days. It is an album that thrives off simplicity and repetition and delivering these elements subtly. It may not the most technical album or most lyrically-provocative collection of songs, but it doesn’t pretend to be. It feels blue collar, rugged, calloused, and real. And sometimes that’s all you need.
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