by Tobias Moore

Heavy eyes, humming street lights, and the scuttling of nightlife, on latest album, Tiebreaker, Ruby Haunt invite you to drift alongside them, and fall deeply into their ever pulsing atmosphere and re-envisage your perspective on societal disconnection.

Haze flecked and transient, Tiebreaker is a merging of realities. Within its flickerings, between the edges of a dream state to the innate caverns of late-night anxieties, you become immersed in the space left by the loss of time. Mixing the melancholia of every day with the reassuring warmth of country-tinged guitars,  Carrie flawlessly illustrates this, as the band create a landscape awash in a blur of their signature neutrality.

From the choirs of crickets to the whispering of the wind, Ruby Haunt’s use of sampling, particularly on Rest Stop, subtly acts as an indispensable undergrowth. Seaming the piece together, it acts as an ever-present amongst the vast wilderness set out by the album’s spacious production. Not once lost, not once alone, this ecosystem of sound provides a sanctuary, to express, explore, exhale.

But this sense of bliss should come at no surprise for those familiar with the LA-based band’s back catalogue. Avalon is inherently Ruby Haunt. Less of a rebirth and more a revitalisation, the LP bears all the same fruits as its predecessor, yet with murmurings of optimism freshly sewn amongst its spectral production.

With such an atmosphere, it’s easy to become lost within the autumnal forestry of sound that Ruby Haunt have laid out. And why not? Oscillating and clouded, Tiebreaker is a gateway towards the twilight zone, a liminal state, a place in which you find yourself relinquished from the intensity of thought.

A questioning of purpose, here, Ruby Haunt have set themselves free from restriction and reacquainted themselves with the escapism I so dearly love them for. A lake of muted reflection, a landscape of ethereal inquiry, Tiebreaker acts as a merging of microcosms. The American dream, the traditional longing to live off the fat of the land, contrasted with the realities of modern life. Through Tiebreaker, Ruby Haunt have shown it’s just fine to live life on the outside.