Small Town Heroes, out February 11, 2014 is a complex and beautiful new album from New Orleans’ Hurray for the Riff Raff. Their fourth full-length original album, it has a perfect combination of all the things that make exemplary folk music—beautiful, jangly instrumentation; deep, soulful vocals; and topical lyrics that are true to the folk tradition. It is a folk record, but Small Town Heroes flirts with the blues more than the band’s previous releases. It has motifs of longing, violence, mourning, and hope.
The bands primary songwriter and vocalist, Alynda Lee Segarra, hails from the Bronx. However, she chose New Orleans as her home, and her music reflects that.
 Take “End of the Line”, for example. Its lyrics bring to my mind the front porches and courtyards here in South Louisiana where people relax, drink, talk, and play music with friends. This isn’t just a stereotype of our state; it’s a wonderful reality for many of us.

In fact, many of the songs will resonate with Louisiana natives or those who have chosen this place as their home.
“Crash on the Highway”, a song about being stuck in traffic, late to a gig, and pulling over to just have a drink and wait it out—I don’t know if you can get more Louisiana than that. Everyone who has lived in South Louisiana knows if there’s a crash on the Atchafalaya or the Pontchartrain Bridge that you’re bound to be stuck for a while.
Continuing with the New Orleans theme, “St. Roch Blues”, is a plea for peace in the St. Roch neighborhood, where tragedy has claimed many lives as of late. The track has a gospel/blues feel that is appropriate for a piece that is as much a prayer as it is a song.
As beautiful as “St. Roch Blues” is, the stand out track on the album is “The Body Electric.” My first listen gave me goose bumps. The song conjures images of so many things—Trayvon Martin’s murder, the violence committed on the streets every day against trans women, and the scourge of gun violence in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. 

Referencing Walt Whitman’s “I Sing the Body Electric” and the folk murder ballad “Delia’s Gone”—it is a bold assertion of the sanctity of black bodies, female bodies, queer bodies. It is an important song—a protest song— and I hope it will become widely sung by the young artists of the current folk revival. 
Hurray for Riff Raff is a band bound for glory, and Small Town Heroes is proof of that. Don’t miss them at One Eyed Jack’s in New Orleans for their record release party February 14, or at Mud and Water in Baton Rouge with Shovels and Rope February 21.