Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight review

Album of the week - Rilo Kiley are yet to break the UK market with the gusto seen Stateside, but their eclectic fourth album Under The Blacklight is sure to help.

Need to know

Rilo Kiley’s Under The Blacklight is the Los Angeles band’s fourth album, and their first for mainstream label Warner Bros.

Lesser known in the UK than Stateside, Rilo Kiley includes Jenny Lewis on vocals – a child actor in Troop Beverly Hills and The Wizard, and Blake Sennett on guitar – a child actor in Boy Meets World, as well as Pierre de Reeder on bass and Jason Boesel on drums.

Since their last record in 2004, individual band members have been working with the likes of The Elected and Bright Eyes – and Under The Blacklight offers a set of dark tracks exploring the seedier side of LA life.

Best track

Lead singer and songwriter Jenny Lewis’ power pop combined with weepy country ballads comes into its own throughout the album, with opening tracks ‘Silver Lining’ and ‘Close Call’ proving particular favourites – with strong lyrics and sweet harmonies hinting at the band’s southern Californian music heritage – and a welcome grimeyness that is all too rare.

Worst track

While the racy video to accompany track The Moneymaker has landed Rilo Kiley in trouble with fans who claim the band are selling-out and deserting their true roots, the track itself is a slight anomaly in-situ, yet only further demonstrates Lewis’ range with a song more akin to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

One for the collection?

Rilo Kiley’s last album, 2004’s More Adventurous prompted Elvis Costello to praise the ‘best lyric writing that I’ve heard in many a day’, and Under The Blacklight follows suit with the band’s strongest, and darkest, offering yet. Fans new and old across the UK are snapping-up this collection of rock, folk, pop, country and even a little bit of disco thrown in for good measure.

James Fryer
20 August 2007