Rufio - The loneliest (Digital EP)

I belong to those who have followed Rufio from the very start without ever being disappointed. Contrary to many old fans, I absolutely loved the more alternative and ambitious step taken with 'The comfort of home'; so needless to say I was very enthusiastic when I heard, last year, that Rufio was rising up from the ashes, three years after breaking up and losing two of their members for creative differences, to release new material and hit the road again. Here's the first delivery of the new Rufio, a 4-track digital EP called 'The loneliest'.

Let's make it clear: from those new songs, you can't say "it was better before". Nope. 'The loneliest', composed of two new songs executed in both full-band and acoustic version, is Rufio in great shape. The first song, 'All that lasts', has the feeling of the band's older material, a fast pop-punk tune without many technical riffs. And when Scott Sellers is claiming: "Understand / The bad days are over / We're free at last / To learn from our past", you can tell his voice is better than ever. Really, it's so good to hear him sing again. It takes you back to the old days of The Ataris, No Use For A Name and Lagwagon. Whereas the vocals and guitars are quite mid-paced, the new drummer Terry Stirling Jr. (ex-Drive A) is totally on fire, playing at maximum speed almost the whole time. The other song, 'The loneliest', is slower, more mid-tempo and standard pop-punk flirting with pop-rock. A very pretty and sweet song. The acoustic versions can seem quite useless at first but they enable to focus on Sellers's vocal melodies and even if they're far from being essential, they're not unpleasing.

I am very happy to announce that Rufio are back, and back in style. Despite a few differences with their latest material (fans will probably ask for more technical guitar compositions, which has always been Clark Domae's specialty and some will miss former bassist Jon Berry's imposant presence, as Taylor Albaugh's bass is more distant, but I personally didn't mind at all listening to the EP), those two new songs are Rufio's pop-punk at its finest (the first one emphasizing on the "punk", the second on the "pop") and you can hear some maturity in the melodies as well. 'The full reality', the band's fourth full-length coming out later this year, could be the best pop-punk record of 2010.

4/5

Recommanded if you like:
Slick Shoes, No Use For A Name, Over It
Check also:
Fastlane, Olivia The Band, Straighten Things Out

www.myspace.com/rufio
(iTunes/Amazon, 2010)