One of the delights of the prior Ratboys album, 2023’s The Window, is that I could recommend it to almost any indie rock fan. You like beautiful Americana? Ratboys. Fuzzy alternative rock? Ratboys. Pop-punk? Ratboys. Occasional noisy jams? Ratboys. It was such a fun grab-bag that I figured it couldn’t last. I assumed The Window would be one of those free-for-all transition albums that leads to a more focused future sound. Especially after the band signed to the alt-country leaning New West Records in 2025.
I was wrong, sorta. The band’s latest, Singin’ to an Empty Chair, does blaze a new direction, but one that’s inclusive, not exclusive. Instead of picking a genre lane, the Chicago musicians have distilled all of these contrasting, even contradicting elements into a singular striking, soaring voice for their sixth and best album.
The album’s title conjures feelings of trying to connect with someone who isn’t there, which turns out to be a perfect encapsulation. Across the album, the Ratboys are walking that fine line between yearning and frustration, announcing it like a mission statement on lead-off track “Open Up.” Over a brightly shuffling rhythm, lead vocalist Julia Steiner attempts to disarm a difficult loved one with her plea of “What’s it gonna take to open up this time?”…but repeats it over and over until a charging irritation seeps into the words and guitar.
Soft, melodic sweetness mixed with hard, crashing passion has always been Ratboys’ strength, and here they’ve fine-tuned that duality for maximum catharsis on catchy rockers like “Know You Then” and “Anywhere.” But they also go further, continuing what they began on The Window’s “Black Earth, WI” by experimenting with raw, extended solos that border on jammy and discordant to great impact. “Light Night Mountains All That” captures the endlessly spiraling anger of being emotionally dismissed by a partner, while the album’s penultimate track— timely destroy-the-system call to arms “Burn It Down”—grows from a simmering flame to raging fire and then back down to embers across its seven-plus minutes.
Singin’s highlight, the eight-and-a-half minute “Just Want You to Know the Truth,” fits this model too. Steiner’s voice breaks your heart as she explores the regret of things never said to a family member who’s now gone. It’s an emotionally mature portrait, acknowledging that fault can lie both with the relative—“Once you had left home, we cleaned out the house, came upon some skeletons that none of us knew shit about.”—and the narrator herself—“I wondered where you might be, but I didn’t think too hard.” It’s an emotional epic without a resolution, giving it a lingering power that’s prompted me to call a few family members.
It’s not all tough feelings, though. Ratboys’ gift for shifting gears extends to the album’s sequencing, as the mid-album trio of “Penny in the Lake,” “Strange Love,” and “The World, So Madly,” offer a twangy, tight, and charming chance to catch your breath. And album closer “At Peace in the Hundred Acre Woods” sends listeners off with hope, too, as the band finds joy amidst the pain with Dave Sagan’s ambling guitar, gorgeous organ from the Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee, and lines like, “Crying in the rain, I’m one with my environment, I’m blending in.” It all shows that Ratboys have moved beyond the constraints of genre and expectations to simply be themselves. Here’s hoping all of indie rock fandom shows up to sit in the band’s empty chair this time around.
