Groove Art Feature
Red Cavalry
Alas, So Long
Red Cavalry might be the trophy holder for “band that has grown on me the most” in the months since first stumbling across their single “First Fire” - which leads off the album that hit streaming today, titled Alas, So Long.
Which isn’t to say I didn’t like them right off the bat. The timely left-wing imagery, the unmistakable echoes of certain bands that were terribly important to me - The Church, among others - I was intrigued immediately.
And something in “First Fire” spoke to me on a deep level, pulling at melancholy and nostalgia that came from someplace I hadn’t visited much since I could plausibly call myself a teenager.
Each single was effective to varying degrees, though admittedly for a while the group felt like something of a novelty. The studied earnestness of the lyrics and the vocal delivery, not overly fussy but confident, will not be for everyone. But for fans of this type of music, I think you’ll find it works its way under your skin.
As they’ve dropped one single after another, with their attendant B-sides, Red Cavalry has morphed into something comfortable and familiar, a trustworthy companion to a range of moods, and Alas, So Long displays a cheeky but savvy artistic cleverness in its subversion of expectations.
One of the more memorable promotional pushes the group made this year was back in March for the timely, topical Democracy Died EP. Between that and the band name, with the accompanying imagery that you can find across their platforms that pursues a pretty deliberate aesthetic, you might have expected an album full of polemic, or protest. And while the personal is certainly political, and vice versa, that’s not really what this album is.
Instead we get something of a gothic love story in 11 tracks, an unexpected set of songs that feels like an opium-ravaged Romantic poet ranting through a cloud of smoke at a barmaid who’s stopped pretending to listen.
On the group’s own biography, they cite a handful of influences, including The Smiths - and yes, we hear it. More subtle, though, the comparison to REM: obvious once you’re pointed to it, but sort of hiding in plain sight. Somewhere in between those two sounds is where Red Cavalry fits, and that alone is enough to perk the ears up on a lot of people.
The tracks here never try to do too much, despite what must have been a fair amount of temptation to do just that. Some of the intros, the riffs, the motifs, would’ve sent me down a rabbithole of trying to turn it into something gigantic, stadium-sized, and that is usually a futile effort. But in Red Cavalry’s hands, we instead get tidy, pretty little pop songs that do what they come to do and then flutter away.
“Unread Books” is the best example of this, with an intro that feels like it’s always been there, playing on the stereo in the car, at the coffeeshop, always right there within arm’s reach. It’s a genuinely lovely tune, and the restraint and tastefulness with which its arrangement is treated preserve something essential in the soul of the song, that too much polishing or pumping up could’ve easily destroyed.
“Give Me A Sign” has probably the purest REM callback on the record, but it’s mostly confined to the intro. A really effective track, leading into “Resist” which keeps the vibe rolling as we tumble towards the finale.
“Bower Meadow” contains the most ominous arrangement on the disc, with a towering riff that carries us through the track, but the vocal delivery makes sure it never gets too heavy, too dark.
Alas, So Long will make you feel young again, but remind you that when you were that young, you probably didn’t have access to the same type of language and emotional understanding that you’d have needed to unpack this sort of melancholy.
Red Cavalry is a puzzling group at times, because for all the familiarity in these sounds, there really aren’t a lot of people doing this kind of music right now. And when you hear this album, it’s hard to imagine there won’t be other people trying their hand at it soon, because Red Cavalry makes it sound like fun.
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