Childhood isn't kids' stuff. Like Tom Cruise, or life in Hobbes' state of nature, it can be nasty, brutish, and short. Language that would make Rahm Emanuel or a "South Park" writer blush. Intolerance enough to have Rush Limbaugh sound like Gandhi. A mini shock'n'awe campaign of child-on-insect violence. And, every now and then, brief glimpses of nudity. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.
UK twee-poppers the Boy Least Likely To didn't disappear after 2005 debut The Best Party Ever reclaimed the schoolyard. But their vividly imagined mix of whimsy and melancholy has attracted a magic-threatening share of the spotlight. A steady drip of TV, film, and retail licensing for single "Be Gentle With Me", originally released in 2003, culminated (so far) with a Coca-Cola commercial during this year's Academy Awards broadcast. At the same time, in a world where Noah and the Whale exist, hipper-than-thou tastes have shifted back toward harsher, rougher sounds, or else impossibly perfect Auto-Tune chart-pop.
Boy will be Boy. Delayed by record-label collapse, sophomore album The Law of the Playground evokes a nostalgia that has as much to do with those innocently optimistic days before financial meltdown, fake celebrity Twitter posts, and Hipster Runoff as with lazy summers. This still isn't kids music. But TBLLT's child's-eye perspective on English anorak pop, sunny West Coast harmonies, Belle and Sebastian-y folk, country, and soul, is now certifiably... theirs, just theirs. Dexys Midnight Runners-like strings join banjo, recorder, handclaps, synths, and glockenspiel. If the enchantment has weakened a smidge, the craft-- and the extreme cuteness-- sure haven't. TBLLT have covered both George Michael and the Field Mice; their own best songs combine the former's chart-conquering populism with the latter's practically mind-expanding wimpiness. "I've got puppy powers," TBLLT lyrical and vocal half Jof Owen murmurs on current single "Every Goliath Has Its David", as multi-instrumentalist/composer Pete Hobbs wields birthday-party orchestration like a giant-killing slingshot.
Yet whether on gung-ho opener "Saddle Up", or self-pep-talk "When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade", fear and neurosis almost always undermine the cheery arrangements. It's an old move, not just for these guys, but on advance download-only single "I Box Up All the Butterflies", with its twang and "When I'm Sixty-Four" oompah, TBLLT give gnawing insecurity a welcome charm. After "the birds and the bees" beset Owen when he's being entomologically cruel, dude reaches a koan-like understanding on acoustic ballad "The Worm Forgives the Plough", itself halfway between Sarah Records indie and Weezer's Pinkerton "Butterfly". Harmonica- and glockenspiel-led "Stringing Up Conkers" juxtaposes grown-up body image problems with... shoving pencils up your nose.
Self-referentiality adds to The Law of the Playground 's sense of déjà vu even as it lets the band try new angles on familiar themes. "The Boy Least Likely To Is a Machine" is a sad scientist's-workshop concept-song... sort of their "Dr. Carter"; brassy swooner "The Boy with Two Hearts" could be the duo's autobiography (with its accompanying anxieties) or a love song (with its accompanying anxieties); "The Nature of the Boy Least Likely To" slows down and stretches out, fighting the same demons as The Best Party Ever 's "The Battle of the Boy Least Likely To".
An old Calvin & Hobbes Sunday strip has been making the rounds again lately. Calvin tries to sell Susie Derkins lemonade, overcharges her because of "demand" for an exorbitant salary, uses sludge water to cut costs, goes to mom for a bailout when Susie won't buy. As strong and unusual as The Law of the Playground is, especially out of step in 2009, it never quite feels as inspired, as fraught with conflicted beauty, as past songs "Paper Cuts" or "Be Gentle With Me" or "Monsters". But that doesn't mean melody, harmony, and earnest self-expression of the funny pathos of being human are any less relevant this year than they were in 2005. "I'm still as stupid as I was before," Owen sings on poignant finale "A Fairytale Ending".
