Orphan Boy are a fairly intriguing proposition, particularly as there's not a whole load that's particularly intriguing about the Northern trio. They sing of record label chancers, northern nowheresvilles, and smoking cigarettes thus they're effectively a handful of years late to be channeling their downtrodden yet continually hopeful pop sensibilities into their sophomore long player. Like a teething, lyrically stunted Arctic Monkeys (for want of a less predictable parallel) Orphan Boy are so plainly standard their record should be impossible to reach the finale of, yet from the organ blares of opener Letter For Annie to the expansive melancholy of A180 Song there's something that latches onto the subconscious, preventing you from bashing the stop and eject buttons before reaching for the air rifle. Like an attempted clifftop suicide prevented by a lurking branch below that usually couldn't support a hamster limb. Popsong, with its wonkier-than-Delays intro synths to its ridiculous, almost laughable lyrics is perturbingly addictive, as it tells of a fool scampering off to London and getting metaphorically wrecked and raped by its allegedly money-hungry industry moguls. Harbour Lights initially sounds like Gwilym Gold fronting Reverend & the Makers, before a glistening guitar line shines from the heart of the track, Rob Cross reverting to anecdotal nonsenses of dying "under provincial skies" in "the terraced houses where we slept all our lives". Some Frontier is as laddish as a round of dirty pints in the Wolverhampton Walkabout, Anderson Shelter Blues swaggers in amidst a baffling harmonica solo, and Untitled 9 sounds like the aforementioned Sheffield primates following a night in a Caribbean cell with John Squire and Shakira. And so to why and how 46 minutes can be not merely endured by vaguely enjoyed? Answers in an eloquent email pretty please...
