Ruby Red

Boasting a small army of musicians and a more velvety studio sheen, Stuart McLamb's third outing under the Love Language moniker finds the Raleigh, North Carolina-based indie rocker offering up a cacophonous set of psych-tinged, shoegaze-kissed, Spector-esque Appalachian garage jams that, according to their author, "were scrawled with lungs full of mountain air, colored with spilled wine, and seasoned with the drawbars of a thrift store organ and tape echo." It's an apt description, as the Merge-issued ten-track Ruby Red feels like it was built on a foundation of half-formed ideas that spontaneously (and explosively) evolved into fully functioning mini-epics during the recording process, resulting in something akin to a more focused GBV or a less strung-out Spiritualized. Festooned with hooks galore, heavier cuts like the propulsive opener "Calm Down," its bouncy twin sister "Kids," the lustrous "Faithbreaker," and the sultry and sanguine "First Shot" succeed not just through the simpl