Album excerpts:

"Work"

"Hazel"

"What It's For"

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Junior Boys : Begone Dull Care
released on Domino Records
reviewed by Rema Rahman for GBH.tv

When Junior Boys toured for So This is Goodbye in the fall of 2006, they were selling their own t-shirts along the walk-up to New York's Bowery Ballroom performance space during the night's opening acts. Timid, yet approachable, vocalist Jeremy Greenspan nonchalantly pawned off his own records behind a long table, seemingly amused that a near sold-out group of concertgoers were there for his and partner Matt Didemus' show. But Junior Boys have existed as underground gems in electronic music making since somewhere around 2003.

Goodbye built on the foundation initially constructed by the duo's debut Last Exit, which produced signature single "Birthday," a tune that has been remixed and rehashed (both by the group and others including Fennesz and Dan Snaith of Manitoba) numerous times since. With their hands on better equipment, their second record beat the sophomore curse to produce one of the most respected efforts that year. Now with their third effort, Begone Dull Care, the Ontario, Canada natives present a warmer, more mature musical shift while often times still retaining their familiar stark electro-mark.

Originally titled after a short animated film by Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren - who is said to have inspired the record's sound - Begone was an effort that Greenspan and Didemus worked on separately so to speak, tag teaming between Ontario and Germany, respectively, throughout most of 2008. The album is a eight-song sing-a-long that holds to Exit's airy debut while not quite taking too much more of Goodbye's more fulfilled sound. In keeping with the suaveness of their opening tracks, "Parallel Lines" is a steady build-up of progressive pop ideology, while still maintaining the originality of the Boys' synth breakdowns and Greenspan's breathy echoes.

A moonlighting aura follows the album's tone on the efforts sexiest track "Work," which has Greenspan naughtily taunting "Work it baby/Work it" before throwing the songs back on the dance floor with the Chromeo-style funk opening on "Bits and Pieces." Another highlight comes in the form of "Hazel," which serves as the albums "In the Morning," a perfectly placed mid-album pick me up with louder, layered textures of electro pop. Going back into to ballad mode, "Sneak a Picture's" synth dominants are fit for a modern 80s slow dance while the mellow island-style beats of "Dull to Pause" help to warm the album's sound, which provides the album's overall variant juxtapositions, while still remaining the sexy after-hours soundtrack it sought out to be. Perhaps during this round of touring Junior Boys could provide more than just t-shirts, for they may not be staying on for too long during the live renditions of these tunes.

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