Dear Boy

LA’s Dear Boy are a romantic bunch, their sound beckons warm embraces and keen smiles from young lovers. The outfit led by their enigmatic frontman/songwriter Ben Grey and completed by Austin Hayman, Nils Bue and Keith Cooper deliver anthemic, cinematic pop songs in abundance. The lush production and effortless beauty of their musicality define them as a truly unique band. Even though they proudly wear their influences on their sleeve, the new wave leanings of The Cure and The Smiths, the Britpop decadence of Pulp and traces of their roots growing up in a time when punk and alternative rock were at their height, these elements can be found in Dear Boy’s music but it is uncommon for a band to unify such eclectic influences and create a sound that is so elegant, romantic and melancholy.

Melancholy permeates every song, whether the songs are hopeful or full of heartbreak and anguish, Ben Grey manages to embody his own elegance into his song writing. With such effortless breeze, these songs conjure a mood of longing and willing, songs such as ‘Hesitation Waltz’ and ‘Local Roses’ can suggest the joys of romance and the pain of separation in one sweeping lyric. Some songs feel like a sigh while others feel like rejoice. ‘Oh So Quiet’ and recent Christmas single ‘Cold Spell’ recount the joys of young love and the bittersweet bite of its ambivalence. There is no distinction between the two, this is a band that basks in the spectrum of love and beauty, and offers it all to be felt all at once through sublime poetic lyrics and shimmering popular song.

The beauty of their music paired with the elegance of their simplistic visual aesthetic help place Dear Boy in a timeless space. There is a lot present that suggests the past, such as the stark minimalism of the post punk aesthetic, but there is also a vitality and urgency to Dear Boy’s sound that makes them undeniably contemporary and ahead of their time. Most often they flirt between the two. In times where rock music is being marginalised and diluted by the unavoidable glare and hegemony of modern pop and dance music, it is a truly wonderful thing to find a band that relish in the decadence and opulence of rock and roll’s past, but are not afraid to break the rules of male stereotypes, of boys in a band, and create something of true value, that is genderless, timeless and damn near perfect in its execution.

Dear or die.

dearboyofficial.com