To My Boy - Messages Album Review

To My Boy
Messages
Album Review

Well there's no use in lumping all the electro lot together. Some of them are distinct anomalies; more of an anomaly than the rest of the oddballs and wire-clingers, shadow-fronted and obscured by ironic images of everything that's so damn uncool. To My Boy? Well they like computers, so that's pretty hardcore satirical pretension there; writing a whole album about - well, what you use to write the album with. However, although comparisons with the likes of Klaxons and Shitdisco are inevitable, To My Boy really don't attempt to become a part. They seem totally involved in what they want to do, whether anyone else is listening or not, and that is perhaps what separates them from the likes of the above.

Messages isn't really dependent on anyone taking an interest. Absorbed - apparently, in the intelligence, warmth and character of technology, To My Boy's Sam White and Jack Snape are even slightly self-deprecating. On 'Eliminate', they sing "your thought surpasses mine, eliminate me." Despite the obvious restriction in writing about one subject matter, and injecting the same 'get up and go' into all eleven tracks, there's rarely a boring moment; an utter ridicule of a situation like 'Model' Highlights are the radio-friendly 'Oh, Metal!', 'Talk' and 'Eureka' - a chirpy dance number that should soon hit Calvin Harris' mixing deck.

Combined with a probably conscious effort to capture the bleak vocal sound of 80s new-wave bands like New Order and Depeche Mode, To My Boy's unique blend of electro and guitar rock at times sounds like a dodgy Red Dwarf soundtrack, but great; it is a thudding slab of cultural enrichment to this intriguing record.

Jamie Curtis