Boy is Fiction

Boy Is Fiction opens with alternating bells and a warm, motionless backdrop. The bells are playfully lamenting, yet any light-heartedness is saved for other tracks, since "BIF vs. 307” takes half of its four minutes to go from vamp to song. It’s the premature complacency that holds the song, and often the record, back from its innate, gentle beauty, one that blossoms surprisingly with the final third of the album. There, energetic, bass-y snare beats fuse with the thoughtful balladry of the sister songs to show Australian Alex Gillett’s unique, still developing style of harrowing, breaking elegance. "Glue/Let Me Think” sets up for the eventual genre-melding payoff in "Say Ah.” It’s a first release for the project, as well as the label, so it’s encouraging to think that there’s more where this came from. Hopefully, like this record, the better tracks are bound to sneak up and grow on us.