Gn＜Magic Carpet Vinyl＞

Led by founding members Julia Steiner and David Sagan, Ratboys began life as an acoustic duo, plugged in and expanded to a borderline raucous four-piece, then settled into a copacetic middle ground with their full-length debut, AOID, released in 2015. Two years later, as a quintet with a permanent trumpet player, they stick with a sauntering, country-fringed guitar pop, fleshing it out with instruments like pedal steel, violin, and accordion on their second full-length, GN. Often landing like a gentler, small-town cousin of the Breeders, it's a winsome match for Steiner's wispy vocal delivery and contemplative lyrics, combined with Sagan's impulsive guitar playing; distortion and the occasional guitar solo or wail of feedback keeps their sound drifting to sleep on a back porch swing. "Elvis Is in the Freezer" is a breezy entry whose sweet tenor is somewhat at odds with lyrics that recount snapshots -- some sad -- in the life of a deceased pet. Its walking gait is reinforced from time to time by pedal steel with trumpet. More straight-forward guitar-band tunes like "Molly" are still colored by twang and jangle. On the sparser end of the spectrum, "Peter the Wild Boy" is a lilting piece of quiet, ethereal folk. Accompanied mostly by acoustic guitar and strings, it has Steiner reflecting on the life of a feral man who was found in a German forest and temporarily taken in by England's King George I ("The year that he died, the United States dollar was born/And now when I pay for my lunch, I feel tree bark skin"). Another history-inspired song is the gloomier "Crying About the Planets," about Antarctic expedition survivor Douglas Mawson (a happy ending for him, but not a happy story). Short for "good night," GN is hardly bedside reading material, full of tales of life trials, some personal, some harrowing, some both. Its musical warmth and unassuming tone, though, may be just the thing for those seeking a melodious, soft-focus diversion. ~ Marcy Donelson