Frontier Ruckus Expose The Nerves of Their Nightmind

It's no secret that Frontier Ruckus have been winning hearts the whole country through after the realease of their third LP earlier this year, Deadmalls and Nightfalls. One of these such heats the Michigan boys won is my own, as made evident by the praise I lavished upon their disc earlier this year. Why am I so taken with the guys? Well, to quote my own review, "Combining the influences of the beloved indie rock of yore (Jeff Mangum, anyone?) with understated folk tragedy, lead singer Matthew Milia comes across vocally as a just-as-unhinged, slightly-more-boyish version of Okkervil River's Will Sheff." That's it, in a nutshell, but the fact is that it goes deeper than that. Something about Deamalls and Nightfalls is incredibly evocative, conjuring up memories of all those times I messed things up for myself and serving as a constant reminder not to mess things up in the future.

Frontier Ruckus, as evidenced by Deadmalls and Nightfalls opening track "Nerves of the Nightmind", is perfect music for autumn, perfect music to reflect on your life, to hate yourself while listening to, and to learn from your mistakes to. I feel like Deadmalls and Nightfalls is the type of record that's going to be with me for a while, that'll doubtlessly end up on my best albums of 2010 list, until I've memorized all it's intricacies and thought out imperfections. "Nerves of the Nightmind" is, naturally, going to be at the forefront of this. A perfect song? Maybe not. But it's close.

Just listen to the band's Daytrotter session from early this year for further proof that these kids are something special.