The EP came out in September 2013 and I discovered it at around that time due to their ties with AFI, one of my all-time favourite bands. I'm pretty sure I downloaded the five tracks from YouTube and ordered a CD copy from the band's online store the following year as a little Christmas gift to myself. They put a few stickers in the package, one of which covered the brand logo on my old laptop.
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| (Authentic instagram photo from December 2014) |
It's really quite difficult to review this EP as a set of 5 individual songs, because I used to listen to it most often as a complete record from start to finish every time I was on the bus home from a trip away (usually to see another band) back in 2014. I see the Dear Boy EP as one continuous 20-minute piece, inextricably linked with the countryside scenery near my house, the purple and aqua upholstery of the bus seats, and the combination of new memories made on my trip mixed with the melancholy of it being over. It was on one of those bus trips that I had the idea for the username that became the URL of this blog.
Rather than assign a colour score to each of these songs after discussing them, I'm just going to say up front that all five are purple on the scale - I can't pick one above the others as an all-time favourite song, but the sentimental value that I built on top of the great music puts the whole EP up there among the songs I hold dearest.
1. Come Along
As I said, I've found it quite hard to review these as five individual songs because I know them so well and love them so much that it's difficult to pick them apart. The genre is indie rock - other reviews of Dear Boy always liken them to the 80s British indie bands and 90s Britpop bands, but when I started listening to Dear Boy I hadn't really explored that scene so I was reminded of the more indie-leaning emo bands that I grew up with, like Death Cab For Cutie. Come Along is a great introduction song for this EP, from the title to the sound of the music, inviting you in to the Dear Boy world. It's a song that I'd love to hear played live; aside from occasional US tours as the opening band, Dear Boy mostly only play in LA, but I hope that they make it to the UK someday so I can finally see them play these songs that I love so much.
2. Green Eyes
Green Eyes opens with an urgent guitar riff that has a Smiths-sounding jangle to it before the vocals and drums appear to start the song properly. I adore the way that the drums and shouted backing vocals interrupt the flow of the verses and contrast with Ben Grey's delicate lead vocal. This song also has a couple of my favourite lyrics from the EP: the chorus "When there's no place left to go, I will meet you down below" and the second verse "I don't want to stay here, I don't want to move on, I just want to be somewhere new". The second one is especially relatable in those situations of discontent with your current circumstances, where there's a reason to hang on but also a desperation for things to change. The title isn't mentioned until the very last line, which is another nice trick.
3. Oh So Quiet
This has another great guitar part and another great lyric: "when I'm with you, you wake up my oh so quiet life". I'm sure it's meant to be romantic but as I would always listen on the way home from trips to see my favourite band and my across-country friends, I always related it to that experience instead - the pockets of excitement and newness breaking up my post-graduate unemployment where I was stuck at home with nothing to do except wait for the next adventure. There's also another lovely vocal contrast in this one - there's dreamy lead and backing vocals throughout, but Ben shouts the 'life!' at the end of the second chorus for a little jolt back into the waking world.
4. Funeral Waves
Here it is, the song that birthed my blog title. There's a glitchy electronic intro repeating the words 'funeral waves' and then we're thrown into a fast rollercoaster of a song. This is the song that I link most with AFI - their guitarist Jade Puget did some production on this EP and the handclaps in the breakdown remind me a lot of the production of AFI's Decemberunderground album and his work producing their electronic project Blaqk Audio. Funeral Waves is also the song where AFI vocalist Davey Havok's work singing back-up on this EP is most apparent, both in the chorus and on lines where the backing group shout things like "I'll find God before he finds me!". This song has a guitar solo which usually doesn't do anything for me but which I can excuse in this context. I also really like the line "I fell for an easy hell but I left it in South London" - despite the band hailing from LA, part of this EP was put together in London and I like that little link with the UK; maybe it explains why Americans think Dear Boy sound so English. The whole thing is tied together with the return of the glitchy electronic part at the end.
5. Blond Bones
It's hard to explain why but this song sounds like an ending, and works perfectly as a slower song after the intensity of Funeral Waves. Structurally it's different from the rest as it doesn't have verses and choruses, just three parts in a AABCB formation that builds up to a big finish before stripping back down to just the bassline that also starts the song. The layers of vocals on this sound really luscious and even though it's probably my least favourite of the five, it's still difficult to find fault with it. If I timed it right, that stripping down to just bass would coincide with the bus turning the corner so I could get my first glimpse of the park at the edge of my home town, signalling the end of another adventure.
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