Ratboys announce their forthcoming album The Window

"It's Alive", in Julia Steiner’s words, captures “the overarching feeling of the world spinning on beneath you while you’re stuck in one place". The single comes hot on the heels of "Black Earth, WI".

The Window marks a number of firsts for the band. Throughout the last few years, Sean Neumann (bass) and Marcus Nuccio (drums) became full-time members alongside Julia Steiner (vocals, guitar) and Dave Sagan (guitars), making The Window the first album Ratboys have written collaboratively from start to finish. It was also the first time they’d ever traveled outside their home base of Chicago to record an album, journeying to Seattle to work with producer Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie, Tegan and Sara, Foxing) for three weeks.

The album follows 2021's Happy Birthday, Ratboy.

The group worked on the arrangements together over the course of a year and half, so by the time the band showed up to the Hall of Justice Recording Studio in February 2022, The Window’s songs were well rehearsed and airtight. “We spent 2020 demoing the songs, and spent 2021 practicing them,” says Steiner. “We practiced twice a week for six months, exploring the songs and developing them. We’d send early versions to Chris and he’d give us notes. It went like that for weeks. It was such a dedicated and intentional process.”

Walla and the band sometimes spent hours just listening to their favourite albums, spinning everything from Sloan, to Brainiac, to The Roches.

"The language Chris uses when speaking about music comes from a very emotionally centered place, and that’s something that resonated with us. He would say things like, ‘This cymbal hurts my feelings,’ or ‘This song is like a cat,’” says Nuccio. “It was such a disarming thing,” adds Neumann. “We didn’t get bogged down in technical terms, and he never placed pressure on us in that way. With Chris steering the ship, we were free to go off on little creative expeditions and come up with parts and ideas we’d never imagined.”

Tracklist:

1. Making Noise for the Ones You Love
2. Morning Zoo
3. Crossed that Line
4. It’s Alive!
5. No Way
6. The Window
7. Empty
8. Break
9. Black Earth, WI
10. I Want You (Fall 2010)