Fall is the debut album from Boy King Islands, a Chicago duo (and side project of beats producer Caural) that has created a kind of introspective, swirling and fuzzy rock. Although the pair at times experiments with ambient guitar pop, their songs work best when they combine this with shoegaze and dreampop influences.
Openers “Atlantean” and “Augusta” are great examples of this approach and are the two best songs on the album. The former track combines heavily distorted and delayed guitars with cymbal-heavy drumming and relaxed tender vocals; the latter adds in a dash of sensuous and warm keyboards to the mix. It’s a sound that could be construed as derivative, but one that the pair absolutely nails. These two songs, along with other highlights “Hellos After Goodbyes” and “I Talk To The Wind” combine adventurous guitar fuzz with ambient textures and gentle melodies and give the band a great emotional palette to work with.
Unfortunately these are the obvious standouts – many of the other songs are unmemorable. Too often when the band veers into more ambient territory it comes off sounding aimless. Tracks such as “Feeling Nowhere”, “Lights in The Sky” and “Wear You Well” are all half-finished meanderings that never really end up anywhere interesting. Unfortunately the album gets bogged down in these moments – that more often than not contain an acoustic guitar – despite the fact that the best look for Boy King Islands comes in the first two tracks.
While this album misses more than it hits, the band’s easily discernible sound that they’ve hinted at here, as well as their crisp production, should prove to be their greatest assets for future releases that are hopefully more streamlined.
Wyatt Lawton-Masi
