(Stunt Company) Indie rockers Ra Ra Riot have released their second new track of the year, following May's "The Wish": the darkly theatric "Friendly Neighbor," available on streaming platforms today.
"Friendly Neighbor" took a long road to completion, having been worked and re-worked several times over the past decade and spanning writing and recording sessions for several albums - including 2016's Need Your Light and 2019's Superbloom. On one hand, its sound is a return to the group's signature baroque-pop stylings associated with celebrated early records The Rhumb Line and The Orchard, featuring a lush and cinematic string arrangement supporting vocalist Wes Miles's incomparably clear and emotionally resonant croon. But it also functions as a continuation of the band's evolution through and beyond Superbloom, with its more adventurous production, subtly psychedelic leanings, and world-weary themes of alienation and atomization.
"I wrote the beginning of the lyrics one night while my neighbors were having a party," explains Miles. "But it sort of more broadly turned into something about alienation, and how it feels like basic social interactions are breaking down because of the messed-up rewards of the internet. I felt like the walls we shared - it wouldn't have mattered if they were three inches or three miles thick."
Whereas the band's previous single, the Rostam-co-written and produced "The Wish," channeled the breezier finger-picking styles of Fairport Convention or The Band, "Friendly Neighbor" echoes the endearing creepiness of a late-70s Beach Boys album, featuring lyrics about clogged pipes and giant plastic lawn decorations that could be just as easily read as earnest as tongue-in-cheek. The protagonist grasps awkwardly at trying to reclaim a sense of human connection that may be more imagined or projected than real; whether his fantasies relate strictly to plumbing is left for the listener to decide.
After a period of relative quiet for Ra Ra Riot, 2024 has been decidedly busier: following the release of "The Wish," the band reunited for three headlining shows in May (in Washington D.C., Boston and Brooklyn) before joining old friends Vampire Weekend on the road in July, supporting the group throughout the Midwest leg of their Only God Was Above Us tour.
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