Life on Earth perhaps could be seen as a nod to how
The Navigator, the 2017 album from
Alynda Segarra, aka
Hurray for the Riff Raff, owed a slight debt to
David Bowie, the patron saint of interstellar rock & roll.
Segarra used Ziggy Stardust to navigate their way back to their Puerto Rican heritage in the Bronx. Reconnected to their roots,
Segarra feels free to leave them behind on
Life on Earth, a restless record that swaps the sinewy rock & folk of their previous albums for an atmospheric yet urgent modern rock. Working with producer
Brad Cook, who previously has helmed albums by
Bon Iver and
Waxahatchee,
Segarra moves firmly into the uncertain present, addressing the turmoil of the 2020s with the tools and signifiers of its era: retro analog keyboards, urgent melodies, spacious sparkling vistas alternating with stripped-down raw guitars, the intimacy of close-mic'ed vocals, and allusions to the past that play like continuations of eternal themes, not mere nostalgia.
Segarra transitions easily from "Rhododendron" -- a fast-talking slice of swagger that conjures the ghosts of both
Bowie and
Lou Reed -- to the open-ended "Jupiter's Dance," a song that hangs suspended in the air. Throughout
Life on Earth,
Segarra moves between these two extremes, often finding a rich middle ground where studio trickery fleshes out their community-minded "nature punk" -- a term they've coined for this record that makes more sense as an aesthetic than as a strict musical designation. While there are guitars throughout the record and they're sometimes in the forefront,
Life on Earth doesn't sound conventionally organic or "punk," yet their phrase is hardly misleading.
Segarra's determination to write about the people and perils of 2022 -- "Precious Cargo" ends with a chant against ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement -- places them firmly within the tradition of
the Clash, not to mention
Bruce Springsteen,
Bob Dylan, and
Woody Guthrie. By melding that tradition with a fashion-forward sound that suits their time,
Segarra has wound up with a distinctive album, one that operates equally skillfully on an emotional and intellectual level. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine