BOYTOY - Night Leaf

How do you present a pop view of New York City through the California sun/moonlight filters? That is the question that BOYTOY, or more precisely vocalists/guitarists Saara Untracht-Oakner and Glenn Michael Van Dyke, with the help of rhythm section members Chase Noelle and Lena Simon try to answer on their second album proper Night Leaf. What they come up with is the fact that both the sun and moon can shine through those skyscrapers.

To get there, they engaged the Allah-La’s producer Kyle Mularkey, who obviously felt that the band wanted that clean, late Sixties guitar-driven sound (no Allah’s reverb-drenched sound here), that also focuses on vocal harmonies, but gives their pop/rock sound just a bit of the crunch that it needs to be interesting.

For such music to succeed you need some quite distinctive melodies, and the band come up with some bouncy, uptempo stuff, that has that Velvet(y) Underground touch combined with some nifty vocal lines (try “Static Age”, or “NY Rip Off”, for example). If you want to make a bit more modern comparisons, it is somewhat like a combination of The Strokes from the east side and Dandy Warhols from the west side. Since both of those bands are/were very much under the Velvets influence, there is no problem for the combination to work.

In essence, BOYTOY has obviously not set out on their musical journey to re-invent the musical wheel, but rather to come up with some decent, very listenable music. BOYTOY know exactly what they can and cannot do, and what they can, they do quite well. The result is ten, late sixties sounding tracks that can represent some quite suitable balmier weather listening, that is tight, solid and with some very pleasant guitar runs and vocals.

Will it blow your mind? No, but then, I guess BOYTOY never had that as their intention. Will you have some musical fun during your car drive or morning run? Certainly. Sometimes, that is exactly what you need, no more, no less.