Photo by Miles Kalchik

While it’s a sad day to see Ratboys finally graduating from their day one label in Topshelf Records for the larger, venerable Americana indie over at New West Records, they deserve it. The alt-country revival is in full swing and the scene is red hot. The Chicago band’s brand of country-friend indie rock was arguably well ahead of its time, but that didn’t stop them from preemptively getting their laurels with their career-best-effort-to-date and 2023 listmaker, The Window, nevertheless.

With that album’s producer Chris Walla returning to the recording fold, “Light Night Mountains All That” hears Ratboys fully revved up and ready for this moment moving forward with an amped up folk explosion vision quest that accelerates all the way through before the lines between the natural world and that which only the paranormal can see disintegrate into one. “The light it tries to tell us how / There’s another world hidden underground,” Julia Steiner sings. We’re ready for whatever they uncover in it next.

Directed by: Marcus Nuccio

Ratboys’ “Light Night Mountains All That” single is available now on New West Records.