NY-based indie rock outfit Ra Ra Riot have released the video Thursday at MTV for the bubbly "Too Dramatic," which is now confirmed to be the second single of their brilliant sophomore album "The Orchard," which showcases this resplendent new dawn. The single will be available exclusively on iTunes on March 8. "Too Dramatic" and most of "The Orchard" is easily digestible and highly infectious indie-pop. As its title suggests, "The Orchard" was recorded at a peach orchard farmhouse in upstate New York."Too Dramatic," is a bouncy write-off of overtly dramatic girlfriends, sounds like it's a totally lovely and breezy song that coasts along on a insistent beat, while violinist Rebecca Zeller and cellist Alexandra Lawn add layers of melody over the top. For the uninitiated, Ra Ra Riot wrap subtly complex melodies, driven by violin and cello, giving them a sound that resembles a more organic Phoenix. But this band, which originates from Syracuse, N.Y., is possibly most defined by the delicate lead vocals of Wes Miles.
Directed by Andrew Thomas Huang, the new video for "Too Dramatic," shows Miles flanked by his bandmates and singing in a soaring falsetto and features the band performing in an other-worldly terrain that blossoms and transforms into a vast, constantly shifting animated landscape, and on a starry night before the day breaks and the clouds shoot by before the ground starts to build upwards with a cool stop motion effect. It's like Middle Earth if it was frequently improperly ingested by toddlers. It starts off as a straightforward performance clip, but around the one-minute mark, clouds began racing overhead and claymation mountains sprout up all around them. It ends with an explosion of surreal colors as the camera swirls around the band on top of a mountain range. Dramatic indeed.
Bring their own brand of sun-spattered orchestral pop, Ra Ra Riot finds strength in subtlety and refraction. This is a band that cooks with indirect heat — melding taut rhythms with lush chamber pop, subtle psychedelia, infectious melodies, and lyrics that tell the story of timorous souls shaking free. The seeds of their latest album, "The Orchard," which unfolds like origami — each undone corner revealing Ra Ra Riot's collective knack for writing sterling arrangements, addictive hooks and subtle details. Furthermore, each listen revealing some new blossom, fruit, or lovely flying insect that you hadn't noticed before.
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