Album Review: Muddy Ruckus “Pretty Bones”

Broke down, broke open, broke up, and plain-ole-flat broke—Muddy Ruckus wants you to dance in the ditch and and bless the blues that make you feel alive.

Hailing from Portland Maine, guitarist Ryan Flaherty and percussionist Erika Stahl that make up Muddy Ruckus have been performing since 2013, dropping their first self-titled disc in 2014. The pair pull from a range of styles—Roots, Blues, Southern Folk/Rock—and use their distinctive, keening harmonies to produce a sound that is fresh and homey, evident on their latest release “Pretty Bones.”

Everyone’s on the run from something or someone in the songs on “Pretty Bones.” But no one is running too far, or too fast, tethered to loves they can’t quit or lives that refuse to quit them. With walking bass-lines and foot-stomping blues riffs, the voices in these tunes relish their heartache and own the way love makes fools of us all. The single “Die For You” is a sweet lament for the one who’s hopelessly tethered to their lover: “Ain’t no lover in the world with a hole in their hand/That won’t die for you because it feels good to them.” A passion/obsession that yields the inevitable madness that we all simultaneously court and curse “Gonna jump in the river, gonna run through the woods/this lowdown living never did me no good.”

The title track, “Pretty Bones,” is the less anguished, but no less impassioned, side to the same coin. It has all the musical trappings of a fun front-porch jam with the lightest touches of Southern rock bass and guitar. It’s a straight-up-mama-come-on-back-home-and-save-me-from-myself tune that charms without losing any of the complicated grit that coats so many of the Muddy Ruckus’ songs: “I’ve been broke down on the road/without you by my side/I’ve been choking on the blues and those feelings just ain’t right… come back in pretty mama/deep inside this house of love/I can’t live here all alone/come back in pretty mama/and rest your pretty bones.”

Even the songs sketched in a darker palette are ones that make you want to hoot and clap in revivalist fashion, praising the reckless freedom that comes with self-destruction and dubious decisions. “Hard Stuff” lays down a blistering Texarcana-influenced guitar track for a story about giving into your worst impulses and turning the nuclear option on yourself because your vices have you pinned. The relentless, driving drums and frenetic guitar echo the narrator’s internal spinout: “push away those demons/but they dive back in me/and my wings are burning like a broke down engine/I’m an angel sinner /getting drunk because I miss her/time to move on to the hard stuff.” I’ll have what he’s having. “Goodness Knows” extends the craving for redemption and explores a relentless desire to show up as a better version of ourselves to the person who really matters, even if, as Flaherty sings it all folds in on itself in the end and you’re back where you started, alone trying to “hide your shame.”

“Pretty Bones” is not without its lighter touches, speaking to the duo’s range in being able to pull back the throttle musically while keeping the same kind of layered, thoughtful songwriting in play. “Stone” is a deceptively simple waltz wrapped in the kind of bass and guitar sound on rockabilly tunes of the 1950s, only softened to compliment Flaherty and Stahl’s lilting vocals that rise and fall with the rhythm. “Trying to find my home/feels like drawing blood from a stone,” the duo sing, building into an exquisitely doleful wail: “trying to overcome/what can never be undone/don’t ever say never say never say never.” It feels more like a prayer than a plea.

There’s a riotous joy threaded through the songs on this album even as they pick over loss, despair, loneliness, and longing. It’s the exhilaration that comes from knowing you might be busted up, but you’re still here, you’re still breathing, and there’s something still worth swinging for in this one, small life. Let the equally riotous and joyful sound of Muddy Ruckus remind you.

***The album drops 6/25, but you can preorder here: https://muddyruckus.bandcamp.com/album/pretty-bones

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Guest Writer: Sheila Moeschen is a Boston-based writer and music/comedy junky. She is a regular contributor to Huffington Post. Follow her on twitter: @thatgirlmsshe