''The Orion Songbook'' is the debut album by

Frontier Ruckus Frontier Ruckus is an American band from Michigan. The project is centered on the lyrically intensive songs of Matthew Milia, and was formed by Milia and banjo player David Winston Jones while growing up in Metro Detroit. In 2008, the band releas ...

, released on November 6, 2008.

Reception

The album received positive reviews, with

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

stating that it is "about as good a debut as a band can hope for."

Crawdaddy! ''Crawdaddy'' was an American rock music magazine launched in 1966. It was created by Paul Williams, a Swarthmore College student at the time, in response to the increasing sophistication and cultural influence of popular music. The magazine ...

praised the album's musical and lyrical landscapes, marked by the "desolate beauty of

Matthew Milia Matthew Milia (born November 6, 1985) is an American songwriter, musician, poet, and visual artist. He is best known as the leader of the band Frontier Ruckus. Early life Milia was raised in West Bloomfield, Michigan, where he attended Catholic ...

's poetry and the quiet intensity the band brings to every note it plays." The album received similar applause from '' Under the Radar'' regarding the interplay of musicality and language, described as "white-hot folk music" paired with "dank and smart turns of phrase." Hear/Say called ''The Orion Songbook'' "the year's best alt-country album," establishing the band as a "formidable outfit with a sound to reckon with and an easy confidence to match." Likewise,

Metro Times The ''Detroit Metro Times'' is a progressive alternative weekly located in Detroit, Michigan. It is the largest circulating weekly newspaper in the metro Detroit area. History and content Supported entirely by advertising, it is distributed f ...

stated that the album "establishes the group as already one of the very best sounds to come out of Michigan this entire decade." Inland Empire Weekly commended the record for its consideration of memory "without the cloying nostalgia or self-consciousness that derails so many attempts to turn back the clock to allegedly purer times," going on to state: "...by looking the present straight in the eye, Milia’s created something timeless."

Adult Swim Adult Swim (AS; stylized as

dult swim Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...

and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...

used "Dark Autumn Hour" for four ads in their well-known series of bumps, first airing in September 2011.

Track listing

All songs written by Matthew Milia #"Animals Need Animals" #"The Latter Days" #"What You Are" #"Dark Autumn Hour" #"Mount Marcy" #"The Blood" #"Bethlehem" #"Foggy Lilac Windows" #"Orion Town 2" #"The Back-Lot World" #"Rosemont" #"Orion Town 3" #"Adirondack Amish Holler" #"The Deep-Yard Dream"

Personnel

;Frontier Ruckus *Matthew Milia -

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

vocals Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or without ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

chord organ Chord organ is a kind of home organ that has a single short keyboard and a set of chord buttons, enabling the musician to play a melody or lead with one hand and accompanying chords with the other, like the accordion with a set of chord buttons ...

*David Winston Jones -

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...

ebow The EBow, short for electronic bow or energy bow, is an electronic device used for playing string instruments, most often the electric guitar. It is manufactured by Heet Sound Products, of Los Angeles, California. It was invented by Greg Heet i ...

*Eli Eisman -

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in the bass range: ** Bass (instrument), including: ** Acoustic bass gui ...

*Ryan "Smalls" Etzcorn -

drum kit A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player ( drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsti ...

, all percussions, mallet-saw, chain-rattle,

stomping A stomp (also referred to as a stamp) is a downwards strike with the heel of the foot from the stand-up position, and is usually directed at the head or body of a downed opponent. A stomp similar to an axe kick is referred to as an axe stomp, w ...

*Zachary Nichols -

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

, singing-saw,

melodica The melodica is a handheld free-reed instrument similar to a pump organ or harmonica. It features a musical keyboard on top, and is played by blowing air through a mouthpiece that fits into a hole in the side of the instrument. The keyboard usual ...

, mallet-saw *Anna Burch -

harmonium The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...

;Guest Musicians *Ryan Hay -

on tracks 3, 6, 8 *Jim Roll -

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

on track 4

Production

*Produced by Frontier Ruckus *Engineered and Mixed by Jim Roll *Mastered by Roger Seibel *Artwork and Design by Matthew Milia and Brian Peters *Recorded and Mixed at Backseat Productions in Ann Arbor, Michigan during the winter and spring of early 2008

References

External links

Catalog
{{DEFAULTSORT:Orion Songbook 2008 debut albums Frontier Ruckus albums