Album Review: Junior Boys - Big Black Cat

It’s been five years since Junior Boys’ last album, but the Canadian pair of Jeremy Greenspan and Matt Didemus haven’t been idle.

Greenspan has been working with fellow Hamilton, Ontario, natives Dan Snaith (Caribou) and Jessy Lanza, while Didemus, now based in Berlin, set up his own label and released music under the Diva moniker.

All of which means that they’ve returned to their first musical love fresh, and bursting with ideas. That’s not to say that Big Black Coat veers off in vastly different directions to the beat-driven, soulful wig-outs that made albums like their 2006 sophomore release So This Is Goodbye so compelling. However, while similar acts (Hot Chip, I’m looking at you) went on to enjoy serious sales, Junior Boys have remained under the radar, commercially speaking. Hopefully, Big Black Coat will change that.

The ability to weld haunting vocals onto disco and even house beats is the Boys’ trump card and they do it superbly well, from the smooth groove of ‘You Say That’ to the slick, house-inflected R&B of ‘M & P’. The heady, trance-like ‘And It’s Forever’ is wonderfully textured, working its charms with subtlety – not usually an adjective you’d associate with the house genre. ‘Over It’ blends ’80s-style rhythms with a soulful vocal and warm electronic swathes, while their cover of ‘What You Won’t Do For Love’ turns Bobby Caldwell’s 1978 soul jam into a blipping, bleeping techno workout, complete with whispery vocal and an insistent chorus of chopped beats and squelchy synths.

Particularly impressive are the bruising, bass-heavy title track and the disco-tastic ‘Baby Give Up On It’, whose fluid basslines ensure it’s ready for the dancefloor. The real gem is the wonderful ‘C’Mon Baby’, juxtaposing menacing beats and sinister effects with a crystalline vocal that’s pure pleading soul, building to a serrated climax, as waves of synths cut through the static like sonic blades.

Brave enough to take risks, Junior Boys have created another seriously impressive album that’s also perfect when you want to close the curtains, yank up the volume and leap around your kitchen like you were at least a decade younger (ahem).

Out February 5

7/10