The Rural Alberta Advantage have released their first new music since 2017’s The Wild. On Tuesday, the group shared “CANDU” and “AB Bride”.

The recordings mark the return of member Amy Cole and the beginning of an “ongoing series of new songs and EPs” to be released throughout 2022.

In a statement, frontman Nils Edenloff shared his perspective of “CANDU”.

“My mom’s uncle worked up in Uranium City, Saskatchewan in the late ’70s/early ’80s, when it was a small but very active mining settlement. We went to visit and it was the first time I was ever on a plane — as a young kid then, I’m not sure if the pictures in my mind now are real or just something from a dream.

Candu was the local high school and only open for a couple of years while the town was booming; it was abandoned like everything else after the mines abruptly closed in the early ’80s leaving most families stranded without work, and now sits completely vandalized.

Growing up in a mining town myself, it’s hard not to think about who or what would have remained for me if the jobs all suddenly dried up, and where my friends and I would have ended up.”

The “CANDU” single cover art was taken by Edmonton-based photographer, Leroy Schulz.

Listen to the new track below.

Filed under: RAA, The Rural Alberta Advantage