Begone Dull Care
While Junior Boys have been making beautiful electro-pop since 1999, this marks only the duo’s second album with its current lineup: original member Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus. The pair’s *So This Is Goodbye* was shortlisted for the 2007 Polaris Music Prize, and the Boys parlay this momentum into the keenly polished *Begone Dull Care*. Soulful falsetto-cooing skates atop the steady stomp of industrial-style drums on the album’s arresting opener (“Parallel Lines”), while undulating bass lends an electro-funk, Chromeo-esque undercurrent to “Bits and Pieces” and “Hazel.” As expected, there are plenty of shimmering synths throughout the album, but the pastoral melody on “Dull to Pause” is as bright and breathtaking as anything in Junior Boys’ catalog.
Continuing the straightforward synthetic soul of So This Is Goodbye, Junior Boys' third LP is lush-- sometimes to the point of textural overload.
Electronica can be a debilitating enterprise over time. The genre, at its best, sprinkles diverse, intricately detailed elements among urgent beats that demand body movement; however, as their careers progress, many electronic artists obsess with nuance, sacrificing the taut, compelling thrills that drive the form.…
The world’s premier maybe-could-have-been-in-an-alternate-reality boyband, Junior Boys, return with their third album. Can they keep up their impressive strike rate? Tom Whyman reviews.
For pretend dance music, Junior Boys’s third album, Begone Dull Care, has a few moves up its inseam.
There’s a double standard in what we want out of our artists as they grow and evolve.
<p>If you've got the patience, it's worth it, says <strong>Caroline Sullivan</strong></p>