Let BOYO Fill You Up with a Gritty Sea of Haze on ‘Control’ [Video]

BOYO, Bobby Tilden, recently gave us Control, a debut album that exposes the basement-ridden twenty-year-old’s garage-heart and post-punk sensibility. Tilden enters the ever-enlarging ring of neo-psychedelia with this departure from his band Bobby T. and the Slackers, a title coined by his high-school mate, Julien Kelly-Gross, who suggested it be the name of their punk band. Together, they would navigate their salad days in concert with art, early life deliverances, and other comorbidities.

Now, he’s gone and created a music video for the self-titled track, which features a bespectacled ghost who revisits all of its “old haunts.” “Control” was the first BOYO single released on Danger Collective Records, and it’s without a doubt the album’s champion, sounding like a half-woke Mac Demarco, or one of the fab four on a half-tab of acid.

All things considered, though, the title track isn’t the only star on Control. “Moombah” and “Days” burn pretty bright too. “Moombah” lets you wonder if Bobby Tilden’s brother lent him Is This It? at a very young age, while “Alright” sounds like Damon Albarn swooped down and snatched Bobby up like Falkor — if Albarn resembled the world’s creepiest dragon. Oh, and the all too brief breakdown in “All Along” is like waking up to breakfast in bed.

BOYO has all the makings of something truly spectacular. The album spans from sounds akin to Syd Barrett and Joy Division to newer psych-gods like Thee Oh Sees and Deerhunter. Control is a gritty and brittle sea of haze with aching subconscious pop melodies that will not cease to fill you up.