Kevin Bronson on February 21st, 2023

0

Ryan Ritual is the new solo project of Ryan Marshall Lawhon, who teamed up with his brother Taylor in the duos Pacific Air and, eventually, Mating Ritual. In August 2021, the latter project achieved the Herculean (these days, at least) task of releasing five full-length albums in five years.

Lawhon temporarily decamped to London to launch his new project, settling in at Strongroom Studios to make an album with producer Chris Zane, whose credits include Passion Pit, Tokyo Police Club, St. Lucia and, yes, the early Pacific Air work.

Mating Ritual’s music straddled the pop and indie-rock worlds, unfailingly melodic, danceable and keenly emotional, sonic caffeine to be chugged, not sipped, en route to a Euphoric Moment. And here, approximately, is where we find Ryan Ritual on his debut single, “Slip Away,” guitars ringing and Lawhon singing like Red Bull just gave him wings. It’s the kind of song curmudgeons might lump in with what they’re now calling “landfill indie,” but we’ll just let its relentlessness, like the object of the songwriter’s infatuation, win for the next three minutes.

||| Stream: “Slip Away”