Frontier Ruckus
The Orion Songbook

Review By Chris Drabick

So here’s a bit of an anomaly; it seems the year’s best alt-country record is from a nascent band that calls suburban Detroit home. Frontier Ruckus has pieced together an endlessly fascinating record, a quasi-concept piece about the fictitious Orion Town of its title (well, sort of fictitious, as there is a Lake Orion located a bit north and east of their West Bloomfield stomping grounds). The narrative thread is of little consequence in the face of the band’s seamless weaving of influences, sounds and instruments. With only a 2006 E.P. previously to its name, this band may not exist on the literal frontier, but it’s kicking up a ruckus.

Singer and primary songwriter Matthew Milia has achieved a rare sort of sound that simultaneously evokes myriad influences while coalescing into a unique whole. It’s fair to say that Frontier Ruckus’ primary influence is Neutral Milk Hotel insofar as it’s fair to say that the Decemberists’ primary influence is Neutral Milk Hotel. That is, it scratches the surface (and hints at the presence of the singing saw on tracks like “The Back-Lot World”) but doesn’t really tell you everything; they are, after all, primarily a country band. The band livens up a horn chart in much the same way you might expect from Lambchop on the devastating “The Blood” and the jaunty “Mount Marcy.” It comes across as a quietly dispirited version of a Gillian Welch on the sweet “Dark Autumn Hour.” It isn’t a perfect record, as it’s overlong and drags a bit at the two-thirds mark, but Milia and company certainly establish themselves as a formidable outfit with a sound to reckon with and an easy confidence to match.