#2 - Frontier Ruckus - Eternity of Dimming

Frontier Ruckus - Eternity of Dimming

Quite Scientific, 2013

For all of the dystopian horror stories the internet has made a reality, one thing it has done is made being a music fan so much easier. Frontier Ruckus is a band I would have been totally oblivious to had I not seen the band’s banjo cover of the theme from The Legend of Zelda on Kotaku. The band was misidentified as a bluegrass duo, and while bluegrass exists in one of my musical blindspots, I liked what they were doing enough to put them on my radar. A year later I recognized the band’s name on the AV Club’s excellent Undercover series, and their version of Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life” resonated with me because you could tell how much they had lived with that song. That song was a staple of the Summer of ‘97, and though the subject matter was WAY too advanced for my 11-year-old brain, that’s one of those songs that inhabits my soul. I took this as the universe telling me to do a little digging and found the band’s most recent album, Eternity of Dimming.

It’s hard to fully express how much I love this album. I don’t know if I relate to another album more. These songs mine the 90s suburban upbringing with such heartbreaking detail. There are so many shared experiences in Matthew Milia’s songs, and I think that’s why the band’s fanbase is as loyal as they are. Paradoxically, Eternity of Dimming’s greatest strength is that it is totally exhausting. 20 songs, a nearly hour-and-a-half long runtime, and a 5,500 word lyric sheet makes it seem inscrutable, but this is one of those albums you obsess over. It’s so rich with experience, and even if that experience is a relatively standard world of suburban soccer practices, bike trails, and trips to Kohls with one’s mother, Milia finds huge emotional clarity by relaying the tiniest details. All of this without even talking about the band’s bluegrass fused indie folk, which uses David Jones’ banjo to add a unique flavor to the band’s sound. I listened to this album obsessively throughout 2013 while we were living in Minneapolis and I associate it with that city (which works a little since the band are upper midwesterners hailing from the Detroit suburbs). I’d ride my bike and listen to this with the same obsessed passion that I would ride my bike and listen to Jets to Brazil in high school. Though it’s all a bit much, that just means that there is more to love. It’s a beautiful meditation on nostalgia, and I’m already nostalgic for the times when I listened to this album two or three times a day.