SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN - Tape Club

OK, another release by Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin who begrudgingly won me over with their last album, the superb Let It Sway. When I downloaded Tape Club (seems no one sends out actual review copies anymore... Wish I had it so easy when I was running my label) I was shocked to see no less than 26 tracks. A cursory look at the song titles revealed a few songs from Let It Sway and I immediately surmised that this must be some kind of singles/outtakes/b-sides collection.

Some internet investigation confirmed this to be the case. Of the 26 tracks, four are demo versions of songs on previous albums while another four (or maybe three and a half?) were bonus tracks from previous albums. Of the remaining 18, I don't know how many were previously released on singles or whatever, but I imagine a fair amount of them were.
OK, that being said, I didn't look into all of this until after I had listened to the material several times. I actually wanted to try and guess which songs (that I didn't already know from Let It Sway) were from taken from previous albums. Coincidentally, the only one I guessed correctly (out of my eight choices) was a song called "Dead Right"!

I'm guessing this is presented in chronological order as it improves as you get into the meat of it. It starts off relatively weak, in my opinion, and gets increasingly better as it goes along. As was the case with Let It Sway, it took a few listens to really appreciate this stuff, but the same brilliant songwriting and melodic craftsmanship is on offer here. So much so that I now feel compelled to seek out their first two albums!

I'm a little bit surprised that I'm digging this so much as it's a little too close to the Jackson Browne end of the pop spectrum than I'm comfortable with, but again, it's just undeniably fucking good stuff. Kinda like vanilla pudding. Mild and smooth, but tasty and satisfying. OK, maybe not quite that smooth. Let's say more like tapioca pudding. They have some moments that at least nod toward a slightly harder-edged approach if not fully place a foot in it. A song like "Lower The Gas Prices, Howard Johnson" has a somewhat early Nirvana feel to it, maybe tempered by a Ben Deily-sung/Creator-era Lemonheads sound. "Song 1000" almost gets snotty in its super-catchy chorus.

By and large, though, it's all about the gentle, delicate pop. The vocal harmonizing on the lead track is eerily reminiscent of that of the Beatles' "Because". "Chili Cook-Off" reminds me of the laid-back, jaunty side of Simon & Garfunkel. The bulk of the remainder paint the sonic mural in various other shades of pastel. One exception is the out-of-left-field electronic treatment of "Yellow Missing Signs" which is surprisingly refreshing in an '80s kinda way. Some of the really stand out tracks include "Half-Awake (Deb)", "We Can Win Missouri", and the sublime "New Day."

Overall, a very worthwhile release, culling together the odds and ends of a band carving out an increasingly-distinguished career for themselves. I'm looking forward to hearing the rest of their stuff. [Polyvinyl]
- John Evicci



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SOMEONE STILL LOVES YOU BORIS YELTSIN - Let It Sway