Imagine a montage of a gathering crowd. Everyone is walking in the same direction on a bright morning. People are laughing and people are joking and people are carrying their kids on their shoulders. Bus drivers are waving. Maybe some birds fly past. The crowd grows and grows and the sense of community and excitement weave together like at the end of Ghostbusters II. Then the familar vocals declare a new dawn: “Sundrenched sunrise, light floods in my eyes.”
So opens Best Boy, the debut album of Oxford Collapse frontman Mike Pace in the new guise of Mike Pace and the Child Actors. Well, with a bit of imagination. Maybe it’s just my overblown reaction to the news that a major part of Oxford Collapse is back and making music. One of the well-respected-but-only-moderately-successful bands that saw me through the mid to late 00s, Oxford Collapse represent a good time in my life, a rose-tinted period filled with new experiences and old comforts. Aptly, Pace’s album is concerned with these very things, exploring the promises the past made and how our future selves are still looking back at them. After the initial triumphant build-up, ‘Up the Academy’ sets out this idea of uncertainty and unfulfilled dreams, “And we hope and we pray like we did yesterday that everything’s gonna be fine”, and even more global views about the lack of the utopia that was expected. “Cracks increasing, Continental Divide… Moral compass clearly not aligned”.
[bandcamp width=100% height=120 album=1496619874 size=large bgcol=ffffff linkcol=0687f5 tracklist=false artwork=small track=1964849889]
If all this talk of unfulfilled dreams has you expecting a dour album then think again. Listen to ‘Summer Lawns’ and tell me that it’s anything other than joyous? Even with lines like “And we drive on highways past abandoned stores stocking things we always wanted but could not afford.“ Tracks like ‘Summer Lawns’ and ‘Cold Calling’ typify the generally straight-up and sincere attitude Pace employs, an all-so-American blend of joy, hope and disillusionment. ‘The King of Corona’ is a pop song in the best sense, a catchy chorus, slight melodrama, a sprinkling of 90s cheese, but it still manages to confront expectation, disappointment, loneliness etc. in an interesting and nuanced way. Similarly, ‘Kiss & Fly’ goes for the stadium electro-rock feel, channelling Springsteen and Simon, without losing sight of the important stuff: “’Someday soon we’ll be alright,’ he said with conviction while locked out from the inside.”
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/157080629″]
Best Boy is for the children of the 80s and 90s, reminiscing about the age where entertainment exploded, where VHS tapes and cable TV transformed us into constant consumers. Of course, as consumers we were sold promises, told we merely needed x, y and z to be happy and successful and pretty and popular. It’s kind of ironic that a time built on visions of the future is now seen as a utopia locked in the past. Pace gets at this feeling by writing feel-good songs tinged with longing, nothing too sad or serious (80s/90s kids don’t take ourselves too seriously), nor a Father John Misty-style ironic assault. Instead, Best Boy is a wistful celebration of what we had and presents some convincing reasons for why we feel the way we do.
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/157080633″]
The album is being released on the 13th January. Check out the official Mike Pace and the Child Actors site for more information. Stream the album over at Stereogum and watch the video for ‘Fire Sale’ below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHK3AcmYwKE]