red yellow & blue by born ruffians

The battle for the best music scene in Canada hasn't been completely fair so far. Montreal has all the big names - Arcade Fire, Islands (The Unicorns), The Dears, Wolf Parade (and their side projects Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs), The Besnard Lakes, and, of course, Leonard Cohen. But Toronto has gained some ground with the recent release of the full-length debut from Born Ruffians, Red Yellow & Blue, released March 4, 2008 on Warp Records.

This three-piece rock group creates an expansive sound with the standard guitar-bass-drums setup. Some tracks sound like a bar fight while others sound like a skip to the market, and even others sound like a collapsed lung struggling inside a dancing rib cage (in a good way). According to the Ruffians themselves, they use "plenty of 'hootin and hollerin' to create a sound [they] call: the best we could come up with!" And it's no wonder their album's namesake comes from a set of primary colors, Red Yellow & Blue - three hues of expression that can be used to paint any picture.

Watch their powers combine in their first video for "Hummingbird":


Samples:
born ruffians - barnacle goose (mp3)
born ruffians - badonkadonkey (mp3)
born ruffians - hedonistic me (mp3)

SO, I'll gladly add Born Ruffians to Toronto's "indie cred list" alongside Broken Social Scene, The Constantines, and the birthplace of Mr. Neil Young.