The Boat People -Soporific EP

Wed 5th May, 2010 in Music Reviews

( Shock )
It would be a fair assessment of Brisbane’s art-pop purveyors The Boat People to label them as the perennial bridesmaids of the scene. Always at the edges of the action, the ‘Boaties’, as they’re affectionately known, have danced with mainstream success and flirted with critical acclaim – holding an almost permanent lease on the “one to watch” baton. Their clever take on pop hooks and lyrical ingenuity have them name-checked as influences: a real band’s band, it seems.

And so with new single Soporific from forth-coming 3rd long player Dear Darkly, do they embark on a sonic shift to open themselves to a wider audience, or is the modus operandi “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. A fragile guitar wash and cheerful vocal harmonies referencing the sophistication of Phoenix serves as an introduction to the tune, before segueing into the more familiar territory of shimmering unconventional pop. True to form, the lyrics play like a thesaurus lover’s dream (“Cos boy you’re a soporific, but is that your fault or mine? Things they used to be terrific, but now they’re barely anodyne”), occasionally dipping into cutesy imagery and barely pulling it back from the brink of being just a tad too earnest.

Produced by Jonathan Burndside (The Sleepy Jackson, Dappled Cities), the album teaser is fleshed out with a Robert Smith-esque eulogy for homely familiarity, Flower Water, and an 8-minute instrumental eletronica jam, Stereo Pair, which revels in its ability to take you somewhere, while realistically going nowhere. All together this 3-song EP serves as yet another notch in building what is the Boatie’s library of unique thoughts on pop music, but serves little to break it, or them, out of what is quintessentially theirs.