REVIEW: Jack Boyd Explores Flawed Intimacy on ‘You can’t always live your life but you can start to plan your death’
WRITTEN BY AMANDA COLLINS
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May was a defining month for Texas born, LA-based indie singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jack Boyd, marked by the May 29th release of his new album You can’t always live your life but you can start to plan your death. Featured in Complex magazine in 2023, Boyd’s momentum has only continued to build as he plays shows across Los Angeles and it seems certain to continue with the release of his album.
At 11 tracks and 32 minutes long, the album is characterized by its easy listening sound, filled with comforting guitar strums paired with the star of the show: Jack Boyd’s lovely voice. As you sit with the music, however, the lyrics reveal the album's true takeaway: that there is tenderness to be found in flawed intimacy, both with the self and others.
Boyd’s juxtaposition of soft vocals and sharp lyricism stands out immediately, especially in "windshield," with evocative lines such as “I can see you in a vision, crush me like a car collision.” Sung in a whisper-soft voice, the lyrics feel less violent than intimate, where any pain in love seems softened by Boyd’s affectionate outlook and delivery.
While listeners may be initially enamored by the optimism felt in songs such as “Everything everywhere all at once,” they stay for his off-balanced nature and his constant self-discovery, revealed throughout the rest of the album. By the time the listener reaches “pretty face,” they experience Boyd’s honest lyrics such as “what did i do to love you, how could i ever treat you that way.” Throughout “pretty face,” we see how Boyd retroactively approaches pain with care. There’s not a bone in the body of this album, or Boyd, that seems to intend damage, as it preemptively licks the wounds it threatens to make.
You can’t always live your life but you can start to plan your death doesn’t stick solely to the personal; the album also touches on larger themes of anti-modernism in the track “no, anything.” Boyd sings about rejecting the world around him, all while reminding the listener of the things that come inherently with the body. There’s a sense of not belonging to anything other than his “two legs two feet two ears.” Allowing atmosphere to shape identity, “no, anything” speaks to a refresh of the soul, as though the outside world taints what Jack knows we already have and, in turn, questions what is purposeful and meaningful in convention, if anything at all. The depth to which Boyd’s vocals can be interpreted is apparent throughout the album, working gorgeously alongside his complex lyricism.
You’ll find yourself tapping along to the sounds of You can’t always live your life but you can start to plan your death while catching yourself digesting the lyrics, the topics recognizable and evocative rather than entirely soothing. Alive rather than stagnant.
It would be a shame to not keep your eyes and ears peeled for Jack Boyd as he continues to grow his name in the left of center indie music scene.