Plus Tapes

There is a crunchy guitar charm to Boy King Islands’ brand new album, but it’s taken a sinuous road to get here: Zachary Mastoon and Jason Hunt have been through everything from high school friends and being part of a live hip-hop crew to school apart and Mastoon’s sample-based Caural alias to living together and the origins of Boy King Islands in the winter of 2003. Since then, the project (named for a Henry Darger painting) has gone from a two-man bedroom side-project to a gnarled dream-rock endeavor mixed to distorted perfection – Mastoon’s whisper-sweet vocal melodies are often broken by the sounds of fuzzy lo-fi grunge guitars and rumbling bass lines. The best moments (“I Talk to the Wind,” “Atlantean,” and every other of the album’s eleven songs) recall the best moments of Thingy, Sonic Youth, Moose, and more. Like any great dream-rock band, Boy King Islands has carefully crafted an album that sounds soothing at a low volume and scary at a high one. Enjoy this excellent execution of the loud-quiet-loud mentality.

Boy King Islands is also available on on iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, and wherever mp3s are streamed and sold.