Ryan Rickenbach was one of many songwriters floating around the NYC scene, making a name for himself in the late 2010s. He had a couple of EPs to his name, a groovy sound that drew crowds, and a handful of new songs in the tank ready for the next record. And then COVID hit, and Rickenbach found himself navigating the treacherous waters of “what’s next”.
In those waters, he found sirens: Temptations of pleasure, intoxicating whispers, versions of himself that turned out to be traps. Now we find him on the other side of those waters, or at least navigating through them with ease. This is not a pandemic record, according to Rickenbach: This is Sirens, the collection of songs from a bygone era that have weathered time and tempest.
The twelve tracks on the new record come from 2019, the year Rickenbach met his now-wife, but was still a young songwriter looking to make his mark. Seven years later, he’s now a husband and a father, living a much different life. But the songs on Sirens still called out to him, and thus he has released them in deliberately sparse form – guitar, bass, percussion, vocals, and little more – in order to let the music sing for itself.
The title is a testament to both Homer’s Odyssey – the story of a long journey towards home – and New York City, where the Maryland-born musician has called home since 2013. New York and the story of the Odyssey go hand-in-hand: Cosmopolis and The Warriors capture the relationship in film, but anyone who’s had to get back to Queens from Manhattan on a Saturday night might feel like an ancient Greek sailor on the stormy seas. On a larger spiritual scale, young folks often go to New York on a journey to find themselves. That sums up Rickenbach’s story for sure.
Now well into a new chapter of that story, Rickenbach enjoys “the luxury of retrospect”: The ability to tell the story about his tempestuous travels from a place of relative comfort. Therefore, it’s interesting to hear him open the album with “Bad Man”, “Cocaine Blues”, and “Hallelujah, Here We Go”, tracks that surely came from a time of less responsibility. But run through the years, the songs still showcase a bit of the young buck who wrote them at the beginning of his journey. Rickenbach’s voice sounds as young and energetic as ever as he sings the words he wrote down seven years ago.
Rickenbach’s a seasoned and talented blues artist, and with arrangements like the one in “Morphine Brain”, the nuance in his vocals – smooth and somber, but deep and dynamic – really shines. The guitar provides tiny pops of jazz while the bass and drums pulse with a simple beat in the background. The tempo of “Morphine Brain” is where most of the album sits: “Cocaine Blues” is about as quick as the music gets.
There are traces of Noah Kahan and Vance Joy in Rickenbach’s work, where the lyrics tickle with metaphor. In “Morphine Heart”, Rickenbach sings “So throw your hair back and purse your lips / If there’s a God he grins between your hips”. It’s a bit cheeky, but again, it’s the kind of writing from a younger man’s hand that still shines in an older voice. But even when the writing remains straightforward, the lyrics still perk up the ears, such as on “Come Thru”: “When I dare to think that I just might have become one of your many fools / I am left to find a way in which I am an exception to the rule”.
With the songs written in a previous era comes the pain of youth, such as on “Porcelain”: “‘Cause I’m 30 years old, and ain’t that old to be sitting by yourself on a Friday night promising yourself it’s gonna be all right.” There’s also “In Two”, which evokes the album’s title: “Oh, the ocean again, calling out like I’m some kind of friend / Well I don’t know you, but that voice keeps coming through.” And then there’s “Fruit Tree”, with a verse that spoke to me like something from a Bob Dylan track: “The thrill of what remains unseen, your deference to nicotine / Will nail me back onto your tree and bleed concessions out of me / ‘Til I am weak and close to death, panting in your panted breath.”
It forces us to ask “Why now?” After so many years with these songs on the shelf, why would Rickenbach choose to send them out into the world, especially when they showcase a version of himself that had not yet charted the course through the rocky waters to come? And once again, we must realize the answer is “Why not?” It often does not do anyone any favors to let memories fester in one’s mind and take up space that could go towards more present matters. With the release of Sirens, Rickenbach breaks his old songs out of the amber and gives them a home in the present time, so that he might enjoy his time with his family and focus on what’s new.
And although Sirens is his debut full-length album and is getting pressed to vinyl, Rickenbach has no grand illusions about these songs. “I’m not trying to ‘make it’ anymore,” he says. “I’m pressing 100 copies. I hope I can sell them all. And I hope the people who would really enjoy the record get to hear it. So I’ll do my best to make that happen.”
That comes from a vantage point of someone who’s been on the long journey and now stands on the other side, watching other young folks navigate the winding waters of love, heartbreak, passion, pain, and self-discovery. He sees them gravitating toward the same temptations that once called him forth, the sirens that took him down dark paths and steered him away from what would become home. Perhaps the songs on Sirens will help all those needing a guiding light – or perhaps a warning signal – for how to find their own way towards safe shores.
Written by Will Sisskind
