Paper Airplanes: Boyhood

Paper Airplanes
Boyhood
54-40 or Fight
2007-03-20

It won’t take you long to figure out what Paper Airplanes are all about. First album. First track. There’s an opening wash of shimmering guitars, a few lines of creaky vocals, and before you know it the whole thing has built into dense and majestic, prog-friendly indie rock. And though Paper Airplanes practice a much less polished, more muddy and low-fi version than the masters of the genre (like, say, the Flaming Lips), they don’t let that stop them from thinking big. Within the next few tracks, you’ll hear church bells, horns, strings, accordion and banjo. Things do drop off a bit for the second half, making the end of the record less memorable than the beginning, but it’s still a promising debut. With some better production values behind them next time, it’ll be exciting to see what these guys can do.

RATING 7 / 10