Review Summary: Today’s gonna change my life
Ratboys’ fifth full-length album is rooted in the concepts of therapy. Notably, the “empty chair” technique is one in which you sit across from an imagined loved one and express to them all of the things that always seemed impossible to say in person. It’s not lost on us that frontwoman and lead vocalist, Julia Steiner, allegedly mailed a copy of this record to an estranged loved one herself prior to this album’s release, hence the name
Singin’ to an Empty Chair. The album’s title thus seems fitting in a couple of ways: there’s intense emotion baked into every square inch of this thing, and it’s sonically unpredictable. It feels very much like the stream-of-consciousness of someone who is confessing, pleading, loving, losing, and reckoning all at once. At its core, it’s human.
Within the countrified indie-folk of
Singin’ to an Empty Chair, you’ll hear traces of similar artists who’ve garnered a larger footprint; think Wednesday, or perhaps even Big Thief. The record oscillates between smooth, glistening acoustics that imply pastoral freshness (‘Strange Love’) and much darker inclinations, with the furthest extreme arriving by way of the towering seven minute ‘Burn It Down’ – replete with revolutionary overtones. Most of
Singin’ to an Empty Chair resides squarely in the middle of those sounds though, navigating the complexities of love and loss with the kind of confidence that can only come from saying it, or singing it, like nobody is there.
While Ratboys keep it tuneful and pleasant throughout,
Singin’ to an Empty Chair still contains plenty of experimental vibrance within its malleable confines. ‘Open Up’ begins as a simple folk tune that follows its namesake and opens like a ravine – revealing a swirling storm of wailing electric guitars that, perhaps unexpectedly, sound celebratory rather than sheerly
intense for the sake of it. ‘Late Night Mountains All That’ seems to take its frustration out on Dave Sagar’s guitar with his series of raucous shreds, but it also sees Steiner remain upbeat even in her laments of feeling unheard/unseen by someone she’s been trying desperately to get through to. The song fades out to alternating guitar static and bubbling electronic noises – almost an exasperated exhale designed to imply “I’m done trying”. In some ways, that’s the prevailing emotion of
Singin’ to an Empty Chair – sure, it’s a reference to a therapeutic technique – but it also feels symbolic to what so many of these songs were written about in the first place; this constant pleading for someone to engage with you, to meet your gaze – only to get nothing in return.
On what I’d consider to be the album’s cornerstone and emotional epicenter, ‘Just Want You to Know the Truth’, Steiner dives right into that exact feeling. The eight-minute epic begins with resplendent acoustics – guitars aching with a gorgeous Americana sway – as Julia recounts a more hopeful time in the relationship: “Let's go back to Wolf Pen, long before I pulled away / An open house on Sunday, we were dreamin' of the kitchen that would surely go right there / Deep breaths full of sawdust, we'd laugh and climb the stairs, yeah”. As the song narrates a gradual drifting apart (from “You'd fall asleep to the TV / I'd try, but I never could” to “While sittin' on the couch watchin'
Antiques Roadshow, guessin' what it's all about / I wondered where you might be…”), it eventually culminates in the damning “It's not what you did, it's what you didn't do”. As the song winds to its intense close scored by Sagar’s ramped-up guitars, Steiner sings sullenly, “A couple some odd years ago, you said,
sweetie take your time / So now I'm singin' to an empty chair, bleedin' out every line / It's not that I don't miss you, or the way it used to be / It's that I can't live my life, without sayin' anything.” It’s a moment where you can practically feel the heart of the narrator breaking.
Although
Singin’ to an Empty Chair is full of mourning – both expressed and disguised in a variety of ways – it always maintains a sense of optimism. Even following the above passages, the channels of communication are never emphatically shut – in fact, Julia ends ‘Just Want You to Know the Truth’ by deliberately leaving the door cracked open, just a bit, implying there will be a future in which she and this estranged loved one eventually speak again: “So, when it comes time to talk, I got nothin' to prove / I just want you to know the truth”. The album sprinkles little gems like this throughout its runtime, with one of my personal favorites coming in the opening seconds of ‘Penny in the Lake’ when we hear a rooster crow and Julia sprightly sing “Today’s gonna change my life”. As
Singin’ to an Empty Chair explores the inner thoughts of its narrator – navigating the swirling anger, disappointment, and confusion – she makes a conscious decision that she’s not going to let all of it define, much less defeat, her. On the curtain-call ‘At Peace in the Hundred Acre Wood’, Julia sings “I never thought I'd leave my old life behind / It's a brand new day, I'm gonna soak up everything, rain or shine” and you believe her because it is sung with the sincerity of someone who has gone through the darkest of tunnels only to finally emerge into the light. Even though it is played off like a carefree three-minute ditty compared to some of the longer and more emotionally tolling tracks here, it feels triumphant in its own way. It’s a shedding of weight, and you can feel it.
Singin’ to an Empty Chair seems like a coming-of-age record for Ratboys. While 2023’s
The Window saw them gain their footing, this is the first time I’ve listened to one of their albums and felt completely enamored from start to finish. It’s consistently engaging from a musical standpoint, blending country/Americana with heavier elements of rock and indie-folk in a way that few other artists achieve this effectively. Emotionally and lyrically – if you look closely enough – it paints a
hope born from ashes picture that is all too easy to resonate with and draw inspiration from. In all ways,
Singin’ to an Empty Chair is a resounding success.
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