Toronto’s Born Ruffians coalesced more than a decade ago, riding a sound equally informed by the melodious melancholy of The Shins and the ragged glory of fellow Canadians The Constantines. Yet by their third full-length, 2013’s Birthmarks, frontman Luke Lalonde admits things had not evolved in a satisfying way — the record refined the band’s more jagged edges in favor of a slicker sound and production style.
“I think (Birthmarks) is the least Born Ruffians of all our records,” Lalonde said in a recent interview with Noisey. “And I mean just in what the band has come to be, or whatever our sound is, this record represented (it) the least.”
Enter the freshly minted Uncle, Duke & the Chief, which reunites Lalonde and bassist Mitch Derosier with original drummer Steve Hamelin and which represents a middle ground between the sleeker aspects of Birthmarks and the rawer approach of their earlier stuff.
“When we left the studio we just had the feeling; it was kind of like when you fall in love,” Lalonde said in the same Noisey interview about the making of the new album. “There’s something about this record where we just got it right. And you don’t always do that. It’s fucking hard to get your records right. You have ideas in your head and they don’t always come out the way you want them to.”
Lalonde calls this their most personal record, which is no surprise — a sense of wistful longing permeates the proceedings. Case in point is album opener “Forget Me,” which was inspired by Lalonde’s father, who was battling cancer as the band was writing what would become Uncle, Duke & the Chief. The song opens with Lalonde strumming an acoustic guitar, his high-pitched voice cracking with emotion as he yelps the chorus, “Wait for me/’Cause I’ll be right behind you,” before, about halfway through, the rest of the band enters and then ebbs out again. “Forget Me” possesses a newfound emotional depth that carries through to the rest of the record, the kind of evolution Lalonde and company seem eager to share.
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This article appears in Mar 7-14, 2018.