LANY - mama's boy (deluxe) (2021) Hi-Res

The synth-pop group aches with boy-band sincerity over sugary arrangements and even a little pedal steel on their anodyne new album.

Their obscure band name or moody group photos might convey some mystery, but “LANY” simply means “Los Angeles New York,” and frontman Paul Jason Klein is just a 32-year-old babyface whose heart was very publicly torn out by Dua Lipa. Malibu Nights, the band’s sophomore album, documented the breakup in excruciating detail, solidifying LANY as a group of attractive, sensitive boys who know their way around a synth pad. This is still true on their latest album mama’s boy, which is occasionally monotonous and—in a development only partially related to said monotony—vaguely Jesus-centric.

The inclusion of contemporary Christian music conventions is half surprise and half natural extension of LANY’s asexual, boyband-adjacent appeal. If the neon cowboy on the album cover wasn’t enough to tip you off, there’s a pretty clear attempt on mama’s boy to reroute LANY from a quirky coastal band to a “traditional values”-based southern one. This version of LANY is a bit closer to the truth — the band formed in Nashville, and Klein was born and raised in Oklahoma. On some songs, he slips somewhat amusingly into a southern accent that doesn’t appear in his speaking voice. Nestled between the expected tracks about complicated love and heartache, Klein assures us that although he has a “past more stained than glass,” he still “[talks] to Jesus,” and is just a “cowboy in L.A.”

Along with the hamfistedly titled, gospel choir-featuring “i still talk to jesus,” “you!” is probably the song on this album with the most explicitly contemporary Christian feel, and also acts as a case study on what makes this album so disappointingly dull. It’s just too clean—too uninventive, too insistent on generalized emotion without committing to a particular one. The guitars are crisp but lack passion, the drums are restrained, and Klein sings in anodyne, youth-group-leader metaphors: “You’re the sun to the moon/You’re my ocean painted blue,” and so on.