he first time I heard this album, it went by so fast that I couldn’t tell whether I liked it or not. Speeding through 20 songs in little more than half an hour, Boyracer takes the Guided by Voices approach to indie pop on To Get a Better Hold, packing dazzling lo-fi bursts of energy into 90-second songs that never have the time to be tiring. This album is pop as it should be; explosively catchy melodies with a clever sound and real emotion.


The album’s first three tracks are pretty stunning, full of distortion and messiness yet brimming with melody. They only comprise about four minutes of the album all together and aren’t very distinct from each other, but there’s so much excitement in the music that issues like these don’t matter in the slightest. This rings true for much of the album, with the majority of the songs employing the same tactics, almost always to good effect because of the blissful energy they contain.


There’s also something to be said for those tracks on To Get A Better Hold that don’t follow the same formula, though. The magnificently bright feel of Primitives cover “Nothing Left” shines amidst the rest of the album, with its light-hearted vocals and incomparably sparkling guitars lifting the song to pop brilliance. “In Love” has a similar ‘80s feel, and is almost as effulgent and marvelous as “Nothing Left.” Boyracer takes a real turn with “Grand Rapids” (which is actually more than 2 ½ minutes long!), letting loose a cloud of distortion over a drum machine, the noise almost drowning out the acoustic guitar playing the melody. “Glitter”, possibly the album’s best moment, features a unique arrangement, with a prominent, slow-moving bass accompanying rapid, high-pitched guitars to a very, very cool-sounding effect.


Despite To Get a Better Hold’s relative consistency, there are a couple spots where the album is slightly misguided. “Jon Al Dente, Impressive One Stop Customer Relations” is just a really poor joke, and necessitates the skip button even if it’s only 42 seconds long. “Every Day Is Christmas With You”, while a good song overall, falls victim to some clichés before recovering, lines like “Don’t let me become immune to such beauty” sung over soft arpeggios weighing down the song considerably.


Thankfully, when a song takes a misstep, it’s no grave setback, considering that none of the songs last even three minutes, and the great majority are much shorter than that. To Get a Better Hold has wonderful momentum, and more importantly, great indie pop songs. Robert Pollard would be proud.