The Boy Least Likely To The Great Perhaps

The Boy Least Likely To have made their living composing sweet, slightly meloncholy pop songs about love and losing. To this end, their newest album, The Great Perhaps, delivers what fans have come to expect. It's an album that mixes sweet melodies with bittersweet lyrics, with just enough wrinkles thrown in to stop it from feeling like a retread.

Starting with the chiptune-heavy I Keep Falling in Love With You Again, the album doles out heartache and redemption in equal doses. This is the band's fourth for their own Too Young to Die label, and the band sounds comfortable, playing on their strengths, which happen to be lovelorn lyrics and gentle, melodic guitars interspersed with the occasional electronic instrument to keep things fresh.

The songs range from straight love songs (Lucky to Be Alive) to vaguely threatening songs about revenge (My Little Heart That Remembers Everything). For the most part, they are upbeat affairs that keep the tone light and the pace lively. The album takes the sincere approach to romance without any snark or bitterness. The wide variety of sounds ensure that things never stagnate for too long, and there's always an interesting dash of keyboard or digital effects right around the corner.

There are a few gems, like the slightly ethereal Even Jesus Couldn't Mend My Broken Heart, in which singer Jof Owen points out that "you have to sit in darkness if you want to see the stars," over hand claps and low-end keyboarding, while My Little Heart invokes a dark tone through the slightly twisted music and the implications of a heart that remembers everything.

When the album does slow down, it indulges in a dreamy, drifting type of pop that sounds like love-sick Flaming Lips. The breezy I Was a Dreamer, with its swirly piano and guitars, sounds like it belongs up in the clouds.

The album is impressively varied without feeling distracted, but there are a couple of songs that don't quite measure up to the rest of the album. The slow jam Michael Collins is a slow-crooning affair that doesn't match the energy or the variety of the rest of the album. The same can be said for Lonely Alone, which is sandwiched between two of the more up-tempo tracks (Windmills for Giants and the aforementioned Even Jesus...), making its slow pace feel jarring.

Overall, the songs on The Great Perhaps are a good collection of slightly quirky pop songs. Even though the focus of the album is a little narrow, the songs here are consistently strong, fun songs, with only the occasional misstep along the way.

Although it may not be an album to stick with you, the Boy Least Likely To have crafted a collection of sweet songs that are beautiful to listen to; an album about love, and all the joy and trouble that comes with it.