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The Boy Least Likely To – The Law Of The Playground

Album Reviews

And to think that this record nearly didn’t get released.

The second effort from twee popsters The Boy Least Likely To is a much belated effort, as it’s four whole years since their fantastically cute debut ‘The Best Party Ever’. Label issues are to blame for this we’re told, with the chief issue being the dissolution of Too Young To Die. Luckily they managed to revive this label in order to get ‘The Law Of The Playground’ out there and it almost makes it worth the wait.

In terms of sound it’s a much bolder effort than what’s come before. For instance as soon as we’ve pressed play we’ve got a brassy stomp that sounds a lot like Frankie Valli’s ‘Cant Take My Eyes Off You’. Of course this is brilliant in itself, but thankfully this opening salvo of ‘Saddle Up’ also contains the lyrics “I just know that there’s a bit scary world out there just waiting for me”. This childlike confidence is key to the appeal of The Boy Least Likely To and should reassure their strong, yet somewhat quiet, fan base that the band they fell for are still firing on all cylinders. In fact they may well be firing on even more.

Their debut may have lead them to coin the term ‘Country Disco’ to describe their style, but it’s only on this record with the additions of the brass and more pronounced string sections that we can truly hear the disco side to this. Unfortunately, as is always the case where disco is involved this on more than once occasion on ‘The Law Of The Playground’ leads to the production overpowering the sentiment. If we take ‘The Boy With Two Hearts’ as an example of this where there’s quiet simply too much going on.

And whilst we feel we must criticise sometimes, this is actually a really enjoyable record. Immediately after the aforementioned track we get the xylophone tingling ‘Stringing Up Conkers’ which contains every last drop of quintessentially English twee charm that you’d expect from a song of this title even though it’s well under two minutes long. The highlight of the whole album however is ‘The Boy Least Likely To Is A Machine’ which is banjo lead and is the bridge between some of the fuller songs on this record and the material of their debut.

Other tracks, which make this album more than well worth your time, are ‘When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade’ which is rather danceable (in a primary school barn dance way) and closer ‘A Fairytale Ending’, which is really rather apt and comes in nicely after a peppering of acoustic tracks in the albums second half. And to think that this record nearly didn’t get released. Rating: 8/10