ALBUM REVIEW: Hurray for the Riff Raff Processes Loss and Other Heavy Weights on ‘The Past Is Still Alive’

On their past few albums under the Hurray for the Riff Raff moniker, Alynda Segarra has focused their gaze on the outside world and the sociopolitical forces that move us. It’s an approach that’s worked, as their 2017 record The Navigator and 2022’s Life on Earth are both fantastic journeys into the intersection of the personal and the political that have established Segarra as one of roots music’s finest storytellers.

Alynda Segarra of Hurray for the Riff Raff (photo by Tommy Kha)

Segarra’s latest album, The Past Is Still Alive, finds them looking inward, exploring their own life and processing loss and the passage of time. Segarra lays out their vulnerabilities and the experiences that have shaped who they are. Full of vivid lyrical imagery and taut, direct arrangements, the 11 tracks on The Past Is Still Alive make for a compelling and emotionally affecting listening experience.

The emotional core of The Past Is Still Alive can be found in its first and last tracks, “Alibi” and “Kiko Forever,” respectively. Segarra’s father passed away shortly before the recording of the album, and “Alibi” finds them coming to terms with an impending loss. Over a heartland rock backdrop, a weary Segarra sings,

You know that time can take you for a ride,
Can take you by surprise,
Maybe you’ll roll snake eyes.
Baby tell me why,
You gotta play your luck?
Two aces call your bluff,
I love you very much,
And all that other stuff.

“Kiko Forever” provides an emotional capstone to The Past Is Still Alive. It consists of a minute of voicemail recordings from their father that Segarra saved. As a dramatic device, using these messages is just as effective as Segarra’s (quite good) songwriting, providing the listener with a visceral glimpse at their real life.

In between the familial bookends, Segarra offers further peeks into their experiences. Featuring some driving guitar courtesy of Hand Habits, “Hawkmoon” tells the story of Miss Jonathan, the first trans woman Segarra ever met. Segarra sings about the uphill battle to find acceptance, and the willingness to rise above it to create a better, more just world.

While “Hawkmoon” possesses an urgency and certain joyfulness in taking on the fight for equality, “Colossus of Roads” is a devastating portrait of how it feels when that battle seems like a losing effort. Written in the aftermath of the 2022 Club Q shooting in Colorado Springs in which five people were murdered and 25 injured in a hate crime, Segarra alternately stands in solidarity with the queer community and all outsiders while lamenting, “Say goodbye to America, I wanna see it dissolve.”

“Ogallala” is the last actual song on The Past Is Still Alive. It starts evocatively, with Segarra being chased by police in the titular Nebraska city and continues with them feeling lost and adrift in the world. By the song’s conclusion, Segarra has figured out who they are, and with a mix of triumph and defiance declares,

I used to think I was born
Into the wrong generation.
But now I know,
I made it right on time.
To watch the world burn.
To watch the world burn,
With a tear in my eye.

In an album full of songs about the journey taken to get to this point, the song brings Segarra’s story to the present day and ready for the road ahead. It provides an effective conclusion to the autobiographical themes of The Past Is Still Alive and leaves listeners ready for what comes next.

Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past Is Still Alive is out Feb. 23 on Nonesuch Records.