Boy + Kite - Blueprint (Self-Released)

After a short break, Austin favorite Boy + Kite is back with their new EP, Blueprint. Showcasing three brand new singles, the EP shows a different side of the band, simultaneously more euphoric and heavier than ever before. Although Boy + Kite has always sported a gentle sense of melancholy, the band here is darker and more broody than ever before, and rightfully so. Vocalist and guitarist Darvin Jones suffered a traumatic head injury in December of last year, spending a lot of time in the hospital, and the songs here, after getting the band together again, show Jones contemplating recovery and an existential crisis of sorts.

Heavy stuff to be sure, but the floating, shoegazey dreaminess of the band is nevertheless still intact—it’s just now fighting for equal attention amongst the crunching guitars like the Sonic Youth-esque track “Touching the Sun.” The opener, “Either Way,” finds the band tackling similar topics as Echo & The Bunnymen on “The Killing Moon.” However, it is “Turned Sideways” that does the best job of encapsulating the way these songs were built from the ground up in the band’s practice studio. Recorded at Public Hi-fi Studios in Austin, the new songs feel positively alive with energy and spontaneity. Blueprint is an incredibly exciting new release, showing a band renewed and reinvigorated with new life.