On My Boy, Marlon Williams has a little more pep in his step than on previous outings. It may not be the equivalent of an ANOHNI going disco revelation, but to his credit, he got the voice right. Those two albums are still very different, but what Williams does manage to capture, more than on any other album he’s released, is jubilance. As a New Zealander, Williams has always had more than a surprisingly adept knack for country music, and when flexing his baritone in his cavernous and minimalist production, he was able to elicit his own brand of isolated mysticism. That croon is still evident on his newest album, but what’s new is his seemingly ineffable swagger.
Even on a track like “Princes Walk”, which attempts to extricate his retro sheen in favor of something more melancholic, Williams can’t help from injecting it with a celestial atmosphere that brings it closer to someone like Dent May than to any of his previous work. Even the similarly mellow “Trips” has a reverence that feels both regal and biting in a way he rarely divulges. Williams expertly marries the disparate styles with an overarching, rich production, and that binds the light, effortless pop tracks to the headier numbers while remaining true to himself as the mouthpiece. The only real misstep comes on “Morning Crystals”, where Williams, in his quest for to provide himself with more “fun” songs to play on stage, kneecaps some stellar instrumentation and inspired verses, with a chorus so inane and silly it threatens to torpedo the rest of the album.
Instead, Williams smartly bookends the track with a couple more cerebral cuts and focuses the audience’s attention on the album as a whole. In that respect, My Boy is a success, an album that rebrands its creator in a genuinely bold new way, something that is attempted often but is rarely this effective. It may not be his strongest outing, but it’s easily his most rousing.
