4 out of 5

Label: Up

Producer: Christopher Roth

I picked up this disc during my indie days where I would trawl through record shop bins for oddities that I thought would bolster my collection.  I wouldn’t keep something I didn’t like, mind you, and I still do this style of random shopping today, but my understanding of my tastes is a bit more honed vs. just wanting to bring a cool stack of records to the counter.  The Concretes were on Up, which my then-favs Modest Mouse were as well, and the cover art of oldy style pics was nifty, along with a lack of band photos and diggable song titles… it fit my standards.  I don’t think I was expecting the twee-ish pop, but I painted my nails and had pink glittery belts, so I filed it under my ‘extravagance’ node and bobbed my head.  It helped that it was actually damned catchy and that lead Victoria Bergsman’s vocals had the smoky, masculine edge to them (despite the cuteness of her phrasings or embellishments) that I dug in the very select pool of female vocalists whom I enjoyed.  (Then and now, mind you.  I am a creature of consistency, eternally whittling down my exterior to a precision edge of douche-baggery.)

But discs only got cursory listens in those days, so I gave it enough spins to know it, and then 50 years later, The Concretes re-emerged in the spotlight, and no one seemed to remember ‘Boyoubetterunow’… to the extent that I wondered if it was the same band.  But of course it is, there’s no doubt about it, just this comp of two earlier EPs is a bit less shiny than their self-titled debut album, maybe even a bit less self-aware.  The debut is like the cool kid you knew who went traveling – probably to France or Spain or India, the fuck – and then comes back with a new haircut and a new attitude and is ‘the same’ but, y’know, different.  More ‘cultured’ or ‘mature’ or other words I’d put in quotes, but you sorta screw up your eyes a bit and that duffer you once knew is still hiding underneath the wig and fancy dress.

‘Boy’ is a collection of two earlier EPs, but it feels consistent as an album.  In fact, the sequencing on here works for me more than other Concretes albums, during which my attentions definitely wander.  My first go through, those billions of years ago (and yet the debut was only 50 years later… HOW DO I MANAGE SUCH BRAIN-WARPING LEAPS IN TIME the answer is: fiber), was easily distracted by the opening da-da-da of Teen Love, a cheekily-titled little ditty with fitting zippy guitar.  After word it slows down a bit for the more contemplative ‘Sunsets’ and then goes up and down the scale, including an incredibly effective male / female duet in ‘Recover’ (did they ever do that again?).  Your slow song ‘Tjyven’ – smartly doesn’t end the album, which would’ve been a bit of a bummer, but instead acts as a couple minute warm up for the excellent closer ‘Contamination,’ which layers its elements in, again, a way to which the band wouldn’t generally return.

So there’s a fair amount of depth to the pop of ‘Boy,’ looking past the pigtail-bobbing beats and simple guitar lines are creatively snarky lyrics and some really surprising compositional choices that are produced down in the mix but clearly, suggesting the arrangement of such elements was purposeful and when you discover them they become your new favorite part of the song.  I’m not sure why this release got glossed over at the time of their debut except that it is a less coiffed beast than the band to emerge… regardless, fans of their Astralwerks releases would absolutely recognize and enjoy the work here, and I think it’s pared down enough such that if you don’t like those releases, you might still want to give this a chance.