Former Hot Hot Heat guitarist and current Wolf Parade member Dante Decaro’s solo debut is ultimately reminiscent of the kind of slow and meditative indie folk used in movies about teen angst and first love and first loss and any number of cliches about young adulthood.
But those cliches are exclusive to the films music like this might appear in. Kill Your Boyfriend’s opening track, “Love Like Thieves” is a bittersweet groovy number that, although subject to the overuse of “the millennial whoop,” still manages to etch out a catchy, danceable cut that’s infectious and effective as an opener.
The rest of the record follows the glitzy example set by its opening track: all strummed guitars and shiny, oversaturated production over which Decaro breathlessly drags out lines with ease. The inclusion of heavily distorted guitars and bells adds to the aesthetic while, surprisingly, not making a joke out of the sad, emancipatory arch the record puts forward.
Twenty-somethings suffering from fall-induced melancholy, eat your heart out.
