Some Old Reviews

Junior Boys’ sophomore album "So This Is Goodbye" manages to make all of the other 80’ dance revivalists seem like obnoxious, arrogant, loud and self indulging nitwits. They are the gentlemen’s club version of this phenomenon, so much so that their most dancefloor fitting song “In The Morning” is, however sensual and danceable, a polite song, even the moog-break fits in perfectly.

This is such a spacious album it’s easy to get lost in it. It’s as though they’ve stretched all the elements that constitute a Junior Boys song to their absolute extent. Since these elements are limited to synths, a voice and bass, this leaves ample room for the songs to breathe and us to get enamored by them. Having lost the more beat orientated Johnny Dark, Junior Boys dropped the more complex and oppressive beats that featured on Last Exit in favor for more subtle and subdued patterns only strengthens this effect. Its zenith coming in “When No One Cares” a reworking of a Sinatra classic -which makes the gentlemen’s club argument more convincing- that’s so futuristic and filled with empty space that it sounds like actual satellite love. Exactly this is part of the appeal these songs have, they do sound to come from another time and place, yet you couldn’t determine if it were the future or the past, like thumbed and yellowed postcards out of 2025. Only a few other bands are capable of creating this kind of feeling, Boards Of Canada being one of them, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Count Souvenirs elegantly fades out into something that could’ve been created by the Scottish duo.

It’s Jeremy Greenspan’s voice however that makes it all come together. Though to some it may sound a little too much like a polished boy’s band voice, he displays a lot of depth and his ability to fluidly guide his voice through the melodies is uncanny. Greenspan is the one putting the warmth in these songs, he might not be the heartbeat-that honor goes to the steady beats- but he is the soul, and what these songs need. Without it they’d be colder, distant and almost too quicksilver to touch, but his vocals provide the window in which we can enter these songs and enjoy them on an emotional level. Without being too naive, I realize that vocals work like this for a lot more bands than just Junior Boys, but given the wide open nature of their songs, his voice becomes paramount for us not too loose track of the songs within. Only once do they fill up the space and let the sunshine in, with FM, the last song before we reenter this world providing us with a heartwarming melody for the colder days that we’ll have to spend not listening to them, without feeling any different from any other song.

“Please don’t touch” is whispered to us, once again proving how friendly they are, and I wouldn’t dream about touching anything on this extraordinary, nearly perfect and balanced album for fear that if I’d change even the smallest detail all of this intricate space that has been created for me might collapse.

The Hickey Underworld

When Kanye West posted the outstanding video (It’s refreshing to see a great videoclip not trying to be art by using overwrought imagery to do so.) to The Hickey Underworld’s “Blonde Fire” on his blog, the Belgian music scène was amazed. Partly due to Belgium’s underdog nature but at the same time because it was a post hardcore song, a genre not really associated with a big time pop figure like Kanye West.

We start off with a couple of expected moves as Zero Hour sounds just like a self titled post hardcore debut album should; not too far off of Shellac. From then on however, it sounds like with every other song the band learns how to better make a pop-song effectively using mutated waltz patterns to propel their songs forward. It’s here that we find aforementioned Blonde Fire, yet it’s in the next three songs that The Hickey Underworld prove their pop sensibility. Zorayda sounds exactly how an all male east coast Pixies never could. Future Worlds is, however unrealistic it may sound, a post hardcore stadium anthem, including wah-wah guitars, addicting refrain, a break, danceable rhythm and a kind of solo without it being a song that Steve Albini would even consider disliking. This all culminates however in Mystery Bruise, which is as aggressive and good a pop song you’ll find these days, much simpler than Liars and less shoegaze than Fucked Up but finding the same kind of rush of adrenaline as those bands can. Younes Faltakh’s voice is what gives these songs their finishing touch. He’ll never be an accomplished singer, but his progression has been remarkable. He still sounds like Julian Casablancas doing a Dylan impression, but he’s learned to get away with it.

The second half of the album, sees them giving in to the anxiety which was previously subdued. They take all the elements of the previous songs, break them up and cram them in Of Asteroids and men…Plus Addes Wizardy. Blue World Order and URMNSTR (Which receives a subtle and nice synth touch) are deceivingly slow songs, which shows us we’re still dealing with a Belgian band that loves to embrace it’s contrary, self sabotaging nature with rhythms that seem to stumble, melodies that are forced but still work and cut short guitars. Because like most Belgian bands they’ve been schooled by the similarly Antwerp based dEUS, even though they don’t sound alike, it’s become a certain attitude towards songs. Flamencorps is the only song that sees them return to the antics of the first half due to a killer hook, but fits in the more anxious second part with a “Love like you used to, and you won’t love again” paired with “Whose gonna pay the bills of our leaders”. Kind of shabby, yet showing exactly how deep rooted the political and personal frustration have become on this album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkB56z_8nck (The great videoclip)