Junior Boys
So This Is Goodbye
4.3/5

Isn’t it great that you can rely on certain independent record labels to always put out good music? 4AD have always been consistently great. Ninja Tunes have the best breaks out there. Rough Trade is home to some of the only magic left in the world. And Domino is the bastion of broad-minded quality control. When I see Junior Boys are on Domino, I have an expectation, which is that So This Is Goodbye is good. Know what? It is. There might not be a lot of constants in the world, but the unwavering good sense of the Domino A&R kids is one of them.

So This Is Goodbye is the bastard younger brother of Thom Yorke’s The Eraser. It is ugly, smelly, victim-complexed, compensating, resentful and it stays out past its bedtime regardless of the consequences. Paranoia I haven’t heard since “Sunglasses At Night” pulsates from your expensive speakers as you spark up the ultra-violet lights in your living room and tap into the last bottle of cheap posh vodka from your mini-bar. What it sounds like is Kraftwerk covering a lot of great songs from the past 25 years. It’s the sound of dancing in a small dangerous club in New York in 1980 with a lot of people doing a lot of coke. It’s the sound of an as-yet-unwritten Brett Easton Ellis novel. It is the antidote to Sunday morning albums.

If you don’t believe me, you should check out mid-album highlights “Count Souvenir” and “In The Morning.” “So This Is Goodbye” is frostier than Christmas in Norway. This is music to watch hallucinations go by. It just gets more distant and hostile to you as it goes on. It’s like a slow and confusing breakup with an ice princess.

It’s at this point you realise this awesome music was created in Hamilton. I’ve had a brilliant run of southern Ontario artists winning me over the first time I hear them recently, and Junior Boys are no exception. So This Is Goodbye deserves to sell a million. It’s a glamorous fatal love affair on a Moscow dancefloor, Russian mafia at your heels. Be still, my beating heart, lest we die tonight to the music of our lives.

Track Listing:

1. Double Shadow
2. The Equalizer
3. First Time
4. Count Souvenir
5. In The Morning
6. So This Is Goodbye
7. Like A Child
8. Caught In A Wave
9. When No One Cares
10. FM

- Kid Lupin

© 2006, All Rights Reserved