Album Review: James X Boyd & The Boydoids - James X Boyd & The Boydoids

There's a whole bunch of bands cropping up out of the collective of musicians from Brisbane known as Velociraptor. Most of them come with a 'featuring Jeremy Neale' style mention, but James X Boyd has gone out Neale-less for his debut self-titled album. A 7” record early last year hinted that Boyd was capable of some quite amazing, lazy indie, but with a whole bunch of songs crammed onto a mono 7”, it was uncertain whether this was a freak occurrence. Fortunately his debut full-length proves that was just the beginning.

Boyd covers the kind of ground that reviewers always like to reference even if the music being compared to is a bit of a stretch. The unpretentious quirkiness of Jonathan Richman is an easy marker – New Town Tango and the '60s rock of We're Gonna Have A Real Good Time Together are total Jojo without Boyd falling into the trap of trying to sing or deliver like him. Elissa Says borrows themes from the Velvet Underground, not just from the title but in the subject matter and the languidness with which the track unfurls.

But Boyd's voice is his own, and it's unmistakable. On the country gilded Diamond On Your Own he sing-talks along without even trying to indulge in twangy leanings. Opening number Blue Apia sets the tone with really basic instrumentation and almost no drums, letting Boyd deliver short couplets of inconsequence while making it all sound very important and deliberate.

An unexpected and brilliant debut with a distinctly Australian sound that eschews the current Twerps, indie-band thing for something much more individualistic.