Review - Rah Rah Rabbit: Chasin’ Rabbits, Catchin’ Squirrels
Photo by Tammie Valer
Laura Anne Lacy, aka Rabbit, has been making music in Los Angeles for more than a decade, both solo and as part of blues/rock/folk band Alice and the Rabbit. In 2022, she formed another band, Rah Rah Rabbit, and a year later released the EP Ghosts, an ambitious and adventurous exploration of honky tonk and Americana.
Now comes Rah Rah Rabbit’s debut full-length album, releasing Friday. The delightfully named Chasin’ Rabbits, Catchin’ Squirrels shows the band finding its footing and confidently venturing to the limits of the genre and beyond.
Chasin’ Rabbits comes swaggering out of the gate with “Liquor Store Chicken,” a turn-it-up honky-tonker with a groove as sleazy and greasy – and undeniably delicious – as the titular meal.
The opening bars – bluesy acoustic guitar riff, a dollop of piano, a dash of organ and a whiff of harmonica – lure you in like the aroma of hot fried chicken wafting out the door.
Rabbit spins the tale: Should she spend her last five bucks on a lottery ticket or the $4.95 special where “they fill it up to the brink / Get you a biscuit, a side and something to drink.”
It’s a hoot, and I’m hungry. (But where is this magical land where they sell fried chicken at liquor stores?)
Rabbit articulates the theme of the album in promotional material: "Chasing what you don't have, regretting what you get, and realizing what you needed you already had. It’s equal parts restless and rooted – like me.”
“When You Get It” is at the heart of it all: Its lyrics are the source of the album’s title. Set to a beat of chirping fiddle and zipper-tight electric guitar swirls, the song meditates on what this rat race is all about. We all strive and strive and strive, chasing “the same damn thing,” and for what? We may be chasing rabbits, but we’re catching squirrels.
“This Winter” is a gem, a sassy maybe-breakup story that rip-snorts with electric guitars and fiddle, shot through with a turbocharged boom-chicka-boom Johnny Cash rhythm line.
“What It Means” is a relaxed two-step stroll, with a sweet fiddle solo midway through, about trying to figure things out, pushing through the self doubt and finding that the answers come from within: “And maybe if I count to three – 1, 2, 3 / I might finally see / Who's holding the key / And where is the door.”
Rah Rah Rabbit channels the Allman Brothers for the glorious album-closer “Windy Feet.” A tale of free-spirited wanderlust, the song rides a wave of rocking piano and guitars, coupled with soaring pedal steel and Hammond organ. It builds to a crescendo, fades, then comes roaring back for a warp-speed conclusion. Glorious.
This may be just Rah Rah Rabbit’s debut full-length album, but it brims with the confidence and cheekiness of veterans who know their way around a song.
Chasin’ Rabbits is everything a good honky tonk album should be: Sassy, irreverent, head-nodding and butt-wiggling good fun, filled with hard-won truths and glimpses of life not far from either side of the poverty line.
Find out more about Rah Rah Rabbit at the links below:
