Taking a look at the Hamilton band’s newest LP
Hamilton, Ontario has become something of a prolific music-incubator in recent years, producing acts such as the Arkells and Jessy Lanza. Coming from the “Steel City,” Jeremy Greenspan and Mark Didemus make up the intimately complex duo Junior Boys, and their ties to the urban city that rose to economic prominence during the later half of the twentieth century are made evident in the music of their newest album Big Black Coat. Fresh from independent work and solo projects—including Greenspan’s work with Manitoba’s Caribou and the aforementioned Jessy Lanza—the good Hamilton boys are back with their first album in five years, under new label City Slang.
The album sounds like something you’d hear in a mysteriously void neon nightclub during the 80s; discordant beeps and bloops, multi-layered synth, and exquisitely danceable beats, but beneath it all, a strange hollowness. If David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows had been a film about a slightly less evil and decidedly more melancholic creature lurking the slightly tacky halls of a nightclub, conceivably, the Junior Boys could have composed music for it. The Junior Boys are a master class of how to jam as many layers of sound into one track as possible and still have it sound entirely melodious.
The opening track “You Say That” blends synth, snare, vocals, and the self-righteous indignation of a bad break-up. “You Say That” is the gauntlet thrown for the entire album, the hinge on which the rest of the tracks swing. Clocking in at nearly five minutes long, the song is lyrically sparse, reiterating the mocking mantra, “Don’t you know that I am the dirty one.”
The third track “C’mon baby” is slow, boozy, and crawling, pushed by a subtle driving beat that climbs to prominence, spiraling into what promises to be a dizzying wall of sonic sirens. Just as the track is about to reach a delightfully loud apex, the noise plateaus, levelling off.
The Junior Boys’ ability to defy convention, to jump off the track of well-worn cliche is undeniably one of their greatest strengths.
Junior Boys have always excelled at crafting deceptively simple choruses. Greenspan’s voice, while not sounding particularly vulnerable, nonetheless expresses some of the most emotionally bare statements available. On “And It’s Forever,” the breaks between verse and chorus are punctuated by Greenspan crooning “I just wanna see you.” On “Baby Don’t Hurt Me,” Greenspan, over a simple jade-tinted synth, sings,“baby don’t hurt me no more.”
Initial Junior Boys releases were moody, Greenspan’s wounded voice hiding between dark synth beats. Over the years the sound has matured with its creators. Big Black Coat is playful, blending emotionally ambiguous lyrics with looping, bouncy beats. In regards to the title track, Greenspan stated “To my ears, it’s the sound of fabric swishing.” The album itself is preoccupied with universally unambitious experiences; the daily grind of work, the highs and lows of relationships, the defeats and victories of independence, the desire to be taken seriously as an adult, and the brush of your new coat as it brushes your legs.
Click below to listen to the album’s title track, “Big Black Coat.”