AOID
2015 studio album by Ratboys
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AOID is the debut album by American indie rock band Ratboys. It was released on 9 June 2015 on Topshelf Records.
Background
Some songs on the album ("Charles Bernstein," "Our Mortician’s Daughter," "Postman Song") had been part of Ratboys' live shows since mid-2012.[1] The oldest song on the album is "Postman Song", which Steiner wrote in 2007, but the majority were written in 2012–2013.[1]
The album was recorded at the Owlery in Chicago at the end of 2014.[1] Steiner recorded her vocals late at night to minimize noise from the shared space they recorded in.[2] Mike Politowicz, bassist and vocalist for Dowsing, passed the recordings to Topshelf Records, who released the album on LP, CD and cassette in 2015.[1][3]
Critical reception
CMJ and BrooklynVegan reviewed the album positively.[4][5] GoldFlakePaint called the album a "gleaming, joyous, raucous display of melodic indie-rock," and included it on their "Albums of the year" list in 2015.[6] More recently Elizabeth Handgun of Swim Into the Sound wrote that Ratboys "felt so coherent and solid from their debut, it is hard to imagine improvement."[7]
Kevin Williams of the Chicago Tribune was less positive, writing that the album is "almost like a sketch...really good but feeling incomplete."[8]
Track listing
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "AOID" | 1:35 |
| 2. | "Tixis" | 3:28 |
| 3. | "MCMXIV" | 3:16 |
| 4. | "Charles Bernstein" | 5:23 |
| 5. | "Folk Song for Jazz" | 4:03 |
| 6. | "Postman Song" | 3:23 |
| 7. | "Our Mortician's Daughter" | 3:16 |
| 8. | "Bugs!" | 3:22 |
| 9. | "Pivotal Dates" | 2:51 |
| 10. | "And" | 3:03 |
| Total length: | 33:44 | |
Personnel
- Ratboys
- Julia Steiner – guitar, vocals
- Dave Sagan – guitar
- Will Lange – bass
- Pat Kennedy – drums
- Technical
- Seth Engel – recording, mixing
- Matt Dewine – mastering