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Boys of Summer, "Future Ancients"
Continuing their upward arc from their previous two CD-Rs, this is a stunning work from the Boys of Summer. Here, the trio have pushed the inter-dimensional jams out even further into the vast void of eternity. Their music is richer in detail and more expansive in range than before. What starts as a relatively transparent sheet of sound bursts into fractals of melodies, beats and rhythms. Forging a more definite identity for their music, this album is another shining beacon in an over-cluttered DIY electronics scene.
 
Following their previous releases, the upward trajectory of the Boys of Summer has been maintained on Future Ancients; the sounds they pull from their synths becoming larger and lovelier, the three players interlocking as one hive mind. On "Hail Sagan," they generate a haze of cosmic debris that dwarfs the current haze of volcanic ash circulating over most of Europe. Unlike the volcanic ash’s forced grounding of all air traffic, the Boys of Summer encourages us to fly with them; the pulsing tones acting like warm updrafts which allow the music to soar into orbit.
The sinister alien radio interference of "Cyclopean Walkways" take the album in a darker direction. Like the music found on their debut release, V, this is a difficult and unsettling piece but where in the past their music fell through their fingers, here they push the malleable miasma of noise into shape. That shape resembles something unfathomable from the cold, dark depths of space: the psychedelic revelations of Arthur C. Clarke terrifyingly pushed through the mind of H.P. Lovecraft. The chill leaves the music with the shift to the title track which all too briefly brings the mood back to something triumphant; the startling realisation of "Cyclopean Walkways" leading to a euphoric epiphany.
Stepping back from all the celestial verbosity above, Future Ancients is a fantastic album. The Boys have honed their craft on the Dublin live circuit and they sound more and more like a distinct unit away from the other groups they play in and away from their contemporaries who I and others have compared them too in the past. Yes, they still could share a bill with the likes of Emeralds and the audience would be happy but the Boys of Summer are now on a different course to their musical colleagues. From the sounds of things, the journey is only starting and we have yet to make the jump into hyper-drive.
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