Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye

A few listens round the office have encouraged comments like a 'modern-day Ultravox' to be bandied about in connection with the Junior Boys (aka Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus), and it's difficult not to agree. This album has dug, clawed, and buried its way into the brain. From the minimal and lo-fi beginnings of Double Shadow and its complex thatching of beats and violin-esque synths (belied by the simplicity of the track), hints of R&B mingling with electronica and chilled house emerge to flavour the rest of the album. Darker Gary Numan hues are etched across First Time, and the vocals emerge as an alto choirboy gone slightly wrong, while Like a Child steers the album towards more recognisable RnB terrain, but with an airy purity about it. Frank Sinatra even gets a re-working on When No One Cares, but to say its unrecognisable is an understatement, as it leans closer to Swedish pop-meisters Magnet. Rather than an evolution, the addictive 'So This Is Goodbye' reaches back into 80s electronica and drags it up to date, adding progressive modern touches. [Alex Burden]