The Junior Boys are not your typical techno band. While their debut album, “Last Exit,” utilized nothing but a few spare synthesizers and vocalist Jeremy Greenspan’s signature breathy croon, it nevertheless managed to sound lush and emotive. Indeed, it was one of 2004’s most heartbreaking albums. At the time I considered it a revelation, if only because I had never before heard a techno album constructed with songs as catchy and lyrical as any modern-rock staple. If “Last Exit’s” reviews were any indication, neither had the critics. Most scrambled to dub it “electro-pop,” “slow-dance,” and even “glacial noise,” desperate to protect it from the soul-killing label of techno. Despite its resistance to labeling, though, it was met with almost universal acclaim, dominating critics’ year-end lists and placing the lonely roads of the Boys’ native Ontario at the forefront of listeners’ minds. This reviewer, at the very least, can’t listen to “Bellona” or “Teach Me How To Fight” without sinking into his memories of rainy summer nights and steam-drenched highways.
And now, two years later, the Boys have given us “So This Is Goodbye,” a decidedly darker and colder album that jettisons dance-y rhythmic foundations in favor of more disorienting beats, enhancing Greenspan’s haunting vocals and cranking their old-fashioned synthesizers up to eleven. Opener “Double Shadow” starts without frills, substituting lush progressions for a simple thump that sounds as though it could have come from a Game Boy; over the course of four minutes newer beats are slowly layered above it, until they form a sound complex enough to foil even the most determined beatboxer. The second track “The Equalizer” combines two recordings of Greenspan’s voice, Modest Mouse-style, into a single spectral wail that complements the sliding, whining melodies popping up from the song’s periphery. From it we can distill the essence of the Junior Boys’ evolution; they sound far more like a true techno act, moving from the warmth that so distinguished “Last Exit” into chillier, darker straits.
This is not to say that the album has no lighter moments; the third track “First Time,” along with “Like A Child” and “FM,” slow down to echo “Last Exit’s” plaintive lamentations. “FM” in particular closes the album with arguably the Boys’ most touching song; atmospheric background hymns provide a calming backdrop for Greenspan’s recitation of his fear, that “we’ll forget him soon.” “First Time” tenderly addresses the conflict between the inevitability of love and the uncertainty of its victims: “Because the night can’t wait forever,” Greenspan tells us, “I don’t know what to do.” “Like A Child” again focuses on Greenspan’s fragility and helplessness in the face of heartbreak; this self-deprecating charm was one of the Junior Boys’ greatest assets in “Last Exit,” and it’s heartening to see that it remains.
Despite the opposition of these two song types – one born on the dance floor, the other in a lonely apartment – the album holds together remarkably well, retaining the fluidity that made its predecessor so unique. This is techno, to be sure, but it doesn’t have any of the jarring start-stop qualities that turn so many off to music of its kind. Instead its disparate parts combine to form a greater meditation on love and loss, giving us something to think about along with the inevitable chills. Is this album better than “Last Exit”? It’s hard to say – I for one will never find a replacement for “Bellona” on a summer night. But it is surely just as powerful emotionally, and just as without parallel. Really, is there anything more we can ask for?
Rating: 9.0/10
Leave a Reply