Boys Outside [LP]

UK LP pressing. 2010 album from the British singer/songwriter, formerly with the Beta Band, King Biscuit Time and Black Affair. Boys Outside appears under his own name, because, he says, he's had enough of all the aliases, and because, more than ever in his life, he's comfortable in his own skin. Also, he's proud of these 10 songs, whose sparse, haunting arrangements bespeak economy, maturity and focus. Boys Outside is fully the equal of the Beta Band's the Three EP's, packed with inventively sculpted sounds and sublime melodies, and shot through with a rare emotional honesty. At once fiercely contemporary, and unlike anything else you'll hear in 2010, the tracks on Boys Outside are every bit as singular as the Three EP's, only now their author is a grown man, with half a life of apparent success, and private agony, behind him. 10 tracks. Domino.