It’s been a long time coming for Ryan Rickenbach.
After a seven-year hiatus with songs patiently collecting dust on the proverbial shelf, he has finally released his debut record, Sirens.
When Rickenbach played the last song of his Adelaide EP release show in 2019 at New York’s Bowery Electric, he didn’t predict this multi-year gap. It just happened. But it’s all ancient history now.
“This isn’t a pandemic record,” he states. “I didn’t write these songs in isolation. They were written in an intensely creative period of my life that feels almost mythical now. A time when the only avenue for making sense of my experiences was songwriting. And they’ve all been preserved in amber since 2019.”
Across twelve songs, Rickenbach traces the pull of obsessions, lovers, and versions of himself that both disgust and delight. The narrators aren’t victims. They’re volunteers. Fluent in their own undoing, and kept company throughout by a voice that keeps finding elegant reasons to come back.
The album comes out of the gate strong with “Bad Man.” An unsuspecting acoustic guitar melts into a bouncy indie folk pop groove, and his vocal delivery immediately perks up the ears. There’s a lot of repetitive “bad”s in the chorus, and damn is it catchy. There’s a lot of folk n’ soul from the jump here.
Hitting streaming nearly a year ago to the day on July Fourth is his single and second track, “Cocaine Blues” — and it’s not quite the Johnny Cash version, but it sure has a killer twang. Again the acoustic guitar takes center stage on this finger snappin’ number, where his uninhibited vocals begin to sound like Father John Misty. The bluesy slide guitar takes this track to greater heights.
Following that up is his lead single for the album, “Hallelujah Here We Go,” which takes a more earnest approach in its delivery. The mellow guitar and vocals give way to energetic drums around the minute mark, keeping listeners on their toes and invested in Rickenbach’s poignant lyricism.
Another track of note is the last one, “Down in the Country.” “Close your eyes for we’ll be there soon / I can tell by the glow of the waxing moon / It’s a summer’s night on the edge of July / The wind is still and the grass is getting high,” he croons in Ray LaMontagne-like fashion. The gentle but swift brush strokes on the drums kick in, and the nostalgic feeling runs high as the album comes to a close.
Sirens is Rickenbach’s first full-length album, produced by longtime collaborator and friend Cass Dillon. The record is deliberately sparse, as most songs consist of only an acoustic guitar, drums, and bass (the latter two played by Dillon), allowing the lyrics to take center stage.
Rickenbach considers the album’s title a nod to both Homer and New York, the city he has called home since 2013, and where he met his wife in 2019. They married in 2022, and in 2024 she gave birth to their daughter. The songwriter now finds himself in a markedly different era — that of fatherhood.
Sirens is not just a captivating and compelling debut album from a versatile voice, but it’s also a lesson to anybody who’s holding their creative work hostage for one reason or another. It’s never too late to put yourself out there.
