Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin

By Erin Wolf

Polyvinyl must love Boris, seeing as the respected indie label is presenting a freshly remixed and remastered version of their original 2005 release, Broom.

To give this album a review so late in the game is almost ridiculous, but the fact is that SSLYBY hasn’t been playing by the particular rules that govern indie-rock publicity. SSLYBY only recently surfaced from the depths of their homemade environs (originally recording Broom in an attic) when they placed a few songs on the World Wide Web.

Then, Magic Blog-land whipped itself into a frenzy of admiration for the band and their album and hastily posted criticisms, which admitted that although SSLYBY did sound an awful lot like Olivia Tremor Control, Beulah, The Shins, Of Montreal, Weezer, Elliot Smith, Bright Eyes, Ben Kweller, etc. … that gee, they sure could write a nice song. After being background-checked and deemed inoffensive copycats, Broom became slightly legendary.

Just like the original release, Broom is filled with unintentionally precious and breathy off-key vocals and yodels, strummed guitars and the air of relief for not being a political band, despite the name. The songs slip one by one down a string of lyrics ranging from travel songs revolving around packs of cigarettes to girls named Anna Lee. Pleasant and familiar, like reading a well-worn book of short stories in the sun, Broom isn’t a half-bad way to pass a half hour. Now that they’ve ventured a bit further from Internet notoriety, perhaps they’ll become more adventurous in other ways as well.