The Boy Least Likely To - The Best Party Ever

Besides, for all its playfulness The Best Party Ever isn't quite the doe-eyed "Hakuna Matata" some early reviews have suggested. Jof's narrator is child-like, but it's just a case of arrested development-- a young man confronting early adulthood in this chaotic century, not with the stoned quotidian of the Streets or the post-apocalyptic communalism of the Arcade Fire, but through a regression into childhood. Thus spooky-synth jam "Monsters" sees friends and loved ones terrifying the narrator by "getting married, having babies"-- and suggesting he'd be happier if he did, too. The gleefully paranoid "I See Spiders When I Close My Eyes" briefly reveals the anxiety beneath its stiff-lipped cheer: "How did I get to be a mess so soon in my life?" Aching standout "The Battle of the Boy Least Likely To" features a prominent, "Sloop John B"-like recorder with quavering vocals about letting go; the effect is akin to a child's first encounter with death.
Yet above all, The Best Party Ever is as fun as pelting Susie Derkins with water balloons. "I'm Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon to Your Star" lives up to its lengthy title with the best-ever musical mention of antihistamines and the tale of an ill-fated Nashville excursion over "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" oompahs. "We never did get famous, but it made us kinda happy and it kept me off of drugs!" Jof explains. "My Tiger My Heart" recalls a Psapp album title for a ballad that's a bit like "Puff the Magic Dragon" meets Calvin & Hobbes or Winnie the Pooh, as Jof relates the difficulty of being "friends with something that eats butterflies and pencil sharpenings."
The album's best song, the dreamy "Paper Cuts", channels Brian Wilson via Summerteeth-era Wilco through the lens of Aztec Camera. It's a broken-hearted ballad about helplessness against an ever-changing world, but it also points to the essential precariousness of what makes The Boy Least Likely To so appealing. "If you throw a light on something magical it disappears," sings Jof. Let's hope not.

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