Sitcom Afterlife
| Sitcom Afterlife | ||||
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| Studio album by Frontier Ruckus | ||||
| Released | November 11, 2014 | |||
| Genre | Folk rock, Indie pop | |||
| Language | English | |||
| Label | Quite Scientific Records | |||
| Frontier Ruckus chronology | ||||
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Sitcom Afterlife is the fourth full-length studio album by Frontier Ruckus. Strongly embracing elements of classic power pop, the record marked a stylistic shift for the band while still retaining a folk rock undercurrent. The album marked the return of harmony vocalist Anna Burch, and indefinite departure of founding drummer Ryan Etzcorn. Sitcom Afterlife is considered to be the result of a romantic breakup experienced by songwriter Matthew Milia, to which AllMusic commented: "[Milia's] not having much luck with relationships, which may be bad news for him but has certainly given him plenty of inspiration."
Sitcom Afterlife received mostly favorable reviews. PopMatters debuted "Bathroom Stall Hypnosis" in August, 2014, noting the "energetic instrumentation" as a "catchy and clever masquerade for the album’s reflective and deep lyrical material."CMJ premiered "Darling Anonymity" in September, 2014, saying that song "takes the sound fans grew accustomed to on 2013’s expansive double-LP Eternity of Dimming and throws it into turbo, resulting in a beautiful sugar rush of a folk pop number."
Regarding the album as a whole, Paste Magazine commended "lyrics as dense as a Faulkner novel and intricate arrangements that transform the typical Americana twang and faded pastoral preconceptions of folk/pop into something surreal and yet familiar."No Depression praised the album's dynamic range, stating that "Milia tells these stories...with powerful vocals which tremble under the weight of expression, moving through a number of experiences and observations, at times involved and profound, at other times brilliantly effective in their simplicity."Tiny Mix Tapes felt the album failed to match "the world-creating power and self-actualized sound" of previous album Eternity of Dimming, but that "'Crabapples In The Centuries Storm' is as intense and as anxious as any song Milia has written, and 'Down In The Morning We Thought We’d Never Lose' houses a romanticism both self-aware and earnest"—adding that, "as ever, Frontier Ruckus deserves more attention than they’re getting." AllMusic also commended "Crabapples in the Century's Storm"—stating that it alone "is packed with more detail than most writers can cram into a full album." They went on to praise the album as an encapsulation of "twenty-something life as the romanticism of youth gives way to the trickier realities of adulthood" through an "eclectic musical approach without losing touch with the qualities that made their previous work so strong." Much of the album's eclectic nature derived from banjo player David Jones' implementation of a customized banjo-Telecaster hybrid instrument which afforded a more jangly, cleaner electric sound than acoustic banjo. Zachary Nichols' ample usage of synthesizers and electronic drum beats programmed into vintage organs also influenced a departure in sound.
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