The Rural Alberta Advantage

The Rural Alberta Advantage are a Canadian rock band based in Toronto. Their bio on their website sums them up better than I could:

The Rural Alberta Advantage play indie-rock folk songs about hometowns and heartbreak, born out of images from growing up in Central and Northern Alberta. They sing about summers in the Rockies and winters on the farm, ice breakups in the spring time and the oil boom’s charm, the mine workers on compressed, the equally depressed, the city’s slow growth and the country’s wild rose, but mostly the songs just try to embrace the advantage of growing up in Alberta.’

I first listened to them back in 2008 when they released their debut album Hometowns (on Spotify here). They have since signed to Saddle Creek Records (alongside bands like Bright Eyes and Cursive) and are releasing a new LP, Departing, on March 1st (pre-order here).