Junior Boys
Begone Dull Care
(Domino, 2009)

My colleague Ian Mathers describes his favorite Junior Boys album, Last Exit, as “hateful.” I wasn’t interested enough to look up the lyrics for that well-regarded debut when I heard it, but now I’m rather curious as to what kinds of uncouth sentiments I’ve been grooving to for the past two months. Scanning the titles of 2006’s So This Is Goodbye, “Like a Child” seemed like an obvious starting point, and from there, Jeremy Greenspan’s graceless dismounts sniffle rather than drink themselves to sleep, one after another. Left alone on his birthday, unable to tell if he’s emptier with or without sex, struggling to apprehend the stake in his heart inscribed “so this is goodbye,” he’d slink like the National or evoke like Interpol if he could piece a sentence together in his condition. With his shaky whisper and barely tonal melodies clutching droll ’80s analog synths like a child with water wings, critics coddled him for years. But even his best melody, “In the Morning”, was pained, a pretty and formless descending scale unshaped into much of a hook. If this band is hateful, it can’t even comport itself to make something from it… angst, aggression, a raised eyebrow. All it can produce is salt down its red face. Naturally, I cringed when I saw the title of their third long-player. Haven’t they learned from bad luck? Or had a decent birthday in three years? I prepared to tag this Bemoan Dull Care if I was going to play it at all.

And then a wonderful thing happened; Greenspan woke up one day, as broken lovers are wont, and moved on. “Dull to Pause” seems to chronicle his newfound ability to go about his business: “All the time spent over nothing / Seems like you’re done / You are,” and more literally, “I was pacing around and just recording it down / I had nothing to say / I’m done for another day.” Here he stops pacing. A good six of the eight new songs can make it home by themselves, portioning healthy funk over another five years of emaciated synths. Claps, traps, simulated horns, even a couple swing moves, countermelodies, losing his mind in riff after riff, co-conspirator Matt Didemus has distracted Greenspan long enough to show his songwriting some love. His singing, too! “Dull to Pause” could vie for Travis or Coldplay’s Brit-croon crown, while the irresistible “Hazel” is a confident, full-belted disco pileup.

The music complies in typically no-mess, rubber room fashion with the steady climb of “Parallel Lines”, whistled hook on “Work”, and four-on-the-floor chop work of “Bits & Pieces”, every one addictive. The filler toward the end is the usual slow drag that mires a good dance record, but that didn’t keep Hercules and Love Affair down. Greenspan may never be charming, and you might not want to give him your work number the next day, but he wants you to know he cares about his art, and that’s a step away from the wallow.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]