Ratboys Throw Open The Window
Photo: Ratboys at Brighton Music Hall, Boston, September 2023 — photo by 4300streetcar, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Chicago's best-kept secret delivers its biggest, warmest, most generous album yet — eight-minute guitar jam included.
For more than a decade, singer-guitarist Julia Steiner and guitarist Dave Sagan have been quietly perfecting a sound that lives somewhere between a basement indie show and a front-porch country hoedown. With Death Cab for Cutie's Chris Walla behind the board, The Window is the fullest, most confident version of it yet.
“If they roll through Boston, see them in a small room while you still can.”
Heart on its sleeve
Steiner's voice is bright and direct, and the songs keep slipping a little sadness under hooks you'll hum for days. Then the band lets loose: "Black Earth, WI" sprawls past the eight-minute mark, blooming into a joyful, twin-guitar freakout that makes it obvious why people rave about their live shows.
Walla keeps things gloriously human. You can hear the room, the amps breathing, the guitars talking to each other — it sounds like a band, not a spreadsheet.
The verdict
Big-hearted and beautifully played, from a band that just keeps leveling up.
