“we are living in impossible times. if it were fiction it would be critiqued as hyperbolic. if it were nightmares we would never sleep. we are living in times created by our own species…our visions are ropes through the devastation. look further ahead, like our ancestors did, look further. extend, hold on, pull, evolve.” - adrienne maree brown

That quote from adrienne maree brown was shared on her Facebook after the mass shooting in Las Vegas in 2017 but could reflect any of the tragedies that have occurred in the five years since she wrote it down.

In the notes for Life on Earth, Alynda Segarra (who performs under the name Hurray for the Riff Raff) notes her influences for the album: The Clash, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, Bad Bunny, and adrienne maree brown – specifically her book Emergent Strategy, a guide to “radical self-help, society-help, and planet-help to shape the futures we want.” Those influences create an album about what survives during transformation. It’s life lessons from someone in the middle of it, so we can learn right beside them.

“I don't believe in anything/This whole f**king world is changing” (“Pierced Arrows”). Life on Earth kicks off with a song about running away from everything and by the second song the escape is ongoing and has a punk (or as Segarra describes the album, “nature punk”) influenced attack against the world. There’s a rawness to the music and the vocals; it is the sound of breaking something open, the curiosity in the mess, and the movement of reconstruction. That rambunctious and jubilant chaos of discovery is in the first few songs – upbeat and full of forward momentum. A dance break with “Jupiter’s Dance” brings in some of the Bad Bunny reggaton beats and a sultry breath with a bit of optimism in the line, “blessings on our way, it has only begin/Jupiter can dance with a vagabond/Like you.”

“The sun in the west and the one you love best/Life on Earth is long” (“Life on Earth”). The music slows to a simple piano ballad halfway through with an almost-lullaby of life lessons and gentle reflections. That gentle caress and motherly love follows in “nightqueen (feat. Ocean Vnong)” the poet’s words flow in the background with fluttering horns. An ode for the refugees (hitting harder while watching people leaving everything behind in Ukraine getting non-stop airtime) in the song “Precious Cargo.”

The world can be overwhelming and, at times, terrifying. Hurray for the Riff Raff faces those horrors and finds the joy – somehow finding optimism in the darkest of corners, in the struggle (“had to grow tough skin” – in “Rosemary Tears”) and knowing that it never ends, it just changes, and that you have a voice in the change.