Junior Boys - Its All True (Domino)
4/5
By: Tom Hocknell
Domino Records remain a reassuringly on-going stamp of quality regardless to genre, with Junior Boys being an excellent example of guitar boys having no monopoly on moped-out lyrics and wistful hopes for a future that probably won’t turn out as planned.
To posit that this fourth album isn’t radically different from the previous ones suggests a band shouldn’t have a particular sound and occupy a niche in people’s perceptions. It does follow their well-trodden path of electro/disco/pop, but when it sounds this good, why leave it to someone else?
It follows singer Jeremy Greenspan’s two-month sojourn to China, where musical ideas and sketches that he had been working on back in Canada took shape with such vigour that he roped in local musicians to start the album while out East.
As ever, it takes a moment to re-accustom yourself to the harmonies landing on off beats, while the rushed enthusiasm of opener Itchy Fingers may leave fresh listeners dizzy.
The soulful ‘Truly Happy Ending’ flutters around an acid 303 line and packs a bass that could punch through walls, with lovely guitar/piano flourishes and a final Prince-like falsetto pay off at which you can’t help but whoop.
As ever, Greenspan’s New-Wave weary voice carries the weaker moments, such as ‘The Reservoir’, which is a little too calm to make much impression, but ‘Getting Lost in a Story’ or at least the dirty 80s funk of ‘Second Chance’ gives the album exactly that. Meanwhile the hypnotic ‘You’ll Improve Me’ is classic Junior Boys and destined for any future ‘Best Of’.
Anyone familiar with their recent live sets will already be au fait with the floor-filling ‘Banana Ripple’, which stretches to an epic 9 minutes with not a second wasted. It succeeds in being both complicated and effortlessly simple at the same time, which is particularly impressive in light of its 170 audio tracks.
Junior Boys may struggle with their public image, which ironically is something seldom associated with electronic duos, but this is further evidence that they have no such problem with producing classy electronica built to last.
Junior Boys - Banana Ripple by DominoRecordCo
Artists in this article: Junior Boys
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