The Rural Alberta Advantage have returned with new single “CANDU” which is some of their first music since their 2017 album The Wild as well as the return of core member Amy Cole.
“CANDU” features that raw and unflinching powerhouse blend of indie and folk that only The RAA can deliver in the fashion that they do, with a slightly more polished and anthemic spin on their now trademark sound. There is a bit of a heartland and a soulful American spirit that still delivers all the trademark emotional goods.
About the song, the band’s Nils Edenloff adds:
“CANDU” is a rustic, anthemic reply to a once-booming Northern settlement that was abruptly forgotten and the band’s lament on the common connections that emerge when you’ve unknowingly tied your hopes to a sinking ship. My mom’s uncle worked up in Uranium City, Saskatchewan in the late 70s/early 80s, when it was a small but very active mining settlement.
We went to visit and it was the first time I was ever on a plane – as a young kid then, I’m not sure if the pictures in my mind now are real or just something from a dream. Candu was the local high school and only open for a couple of years while the town was booming; it was abandoned like everything else after the mines abruptly closed in the early 80s leaving most families stranded without work, and now sits completely vandalized. Growing up in a mining town myself, it’s hard not to think about who or what would have remained for me if the jobs all suddenly dried up, and where my friends and I would have ended up.
Enjoy a listen to “CANDU” now below.
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