Review Summary: Indie-pop is a pretty stale, played-out genre, right? Well, kinda right, but that doesn't mean Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin can't blow your socks off with their refinement of the genre (well, here and there at least).
If you think I’m going to write this entire review while writing out Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, you’re wrong. This band is good, but not
that good. Now that that’s out of the way, I can move onto this little pop medley known as
Broom. Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin ride along the coattails of The Shins with an indie-pop record worth a damn. You’re probably thinking, does Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin have a delightful vocalist, a scaled-down version of Rivers Cuomo? Well, the answer is inevitably “yes.” Or maybe that guy over there- yeah that one -is all like, “Well yeah, but do they have the catchy pop sensibilities of Wolf Parade, or how about a toned-down Of Montreal?” Yeah, “that guy,” Broom fits all of those ridiculously absurd categories incredibly well, in fact you just described most of the album for me. Thanks, bro.
Before I get too off topic, let’s make sure I can detail the absolute loveliness of this record to you. Ever been in a fight where one guy just goes too far? This is nothing like that.
Broom is tranquil, fun, and a way too upbeat to frown along to as you inevitably hum along (because you will!). Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin crafted 10 songs for
Broom, and most of them are very easy to lump together and categorize: indie-pop with some pleasing vocals and catchy melodies (SO specific, right?), but that’s just the beginning. What always boggles my mind about
Broom is the fact that, despite the obvious lack of diversity, it seems extraordinarily hit or miss.
It doesn’t quite make sense, not in my mind of logic and reason. All of the songs on here sound relatively similar, but there’s a gap the size of Russia between the quality of “Oregon Girl” and its unfortunately less appealing little sister “What’ll We Do.” About half of the songs by the band blend into indie obscurity, but a few standouts redeem Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin. Now, I told myself before I started this review that there was no way I would spend half the time talking about “House Fire,” but I’m sensing a relapse here. The song is a pretty gorgeous little slice of heaven. It takes things down a few notches and the melodies blend perfectly with the vocalist uttering the first lines,
“We did what we could / to save this house from falling / but it burns because its wood / now you’ll never call me darling.” For a sublime 3 minutes, everything feels at ease, and it’s this amazing quality that has kept “House Fire” in my regular set of plays for a good 5 years (I’ve been listening to music seriously for about 2 or 3).
Broom definitely has its downs, most obviously in the lac of diversity but also in the copycat nature of most of the album. Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin doesn’t quite manage to bring a whole lot of innovative material to the genre, but damn do they know how to refine it in a beautiful manner here and there? Chances are, many of you won’t luckily stumble across this band and fall in love with a song of theirs like I did in freshman year of high school when I knew nothing of music outside of the radio and the country music my parents had an affinity for. You probably won’t even listen to Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin seeing this, will you? Well, if you do anything, please at least listen to “House Fire,” and I hope it has the same effect on you. Who knows, maybe you’ll fall in love with music all over again?
***, I mentioned that goddam-awful , clumsy name like 10 times didn’t I?
Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin
Ok, there we go.
