OldBoy play a stripe of stripped down proto-country/rootsy-almost-folk where-in the primary instruments (aside from the vocals & guitars) are melancholy and a dirge-drenched spirit.
While spare, the 8 tracks on "How Lost I Am" are never some sort of premeditated low-fi concoction and the tunes are played with a deftness that would belie any expected primitivism.
Basic, but handled with a refined vision, if you get where I'm coming from.
There's also the occasional hint of early rock to keep the songs moving, but when the oldtyme rock does appear it seems strangely modern compared to rest of the band's sound.
To all of this they add a bit of nautical insight, giving a few pieces on this CD a lost pirate sensibility. But it's the songs that mix all of this together (namely "Lost at Sea" and "Sailor's Booty") that I love the best.
What throws me for a loop is that all of these elements give the work of OldBoy an Americana feel, yet the old boys are from London (the British one). Once again proving that distance can provide a unique and important artistic perspective.
So if you put this altogether you end up with a soundtrack to a movie set in a dusty bar located in an American ghost-town, but built from the wreckage of a British buccaneer's ship that came crashing out of the sky.
