Terribly Yours, the current nom de pop of Brooklyn-based musician Sean Bones, tagged its debut full-length A Bloom Beyond with “devotional,” and the opening track, the gently-burbling “Answered Prayers,” is indicative of that mood: “Just remember all the ways you’ve been asking to be saved,” he notes, while a choir (which includes his three-year-old daughter) soars above him. A Bloom Beyond, however, is one of those prayers that celebrates while also stating desires—a gem that sparkles with hope for a better world as much as it does gratitude toward the good that has managed to win out.
Bones’s version of synthpop isn’t grounded in a particular era or style—if anything, what makes A Bloom Beyond such a fun album is Bones’s clear willingness to explore, whether he’s adding filigrees of organ to the 3 a.m. swagger of “Cemeteries In Reverse” or playing gently-jangling guitar over the bobbing bass of “No Genius,” on which his singing’s razor-sharp cadence recalls the pointed conversational tone of Spoon’s Britt Daniel. The hazy textures of the besotted “Barbara” and the bouncing-ball beat of “See Through The Dark” only add to the effervescent excitement—made even more bubbly by the idea that anything might happen—that flows throughout A Bloom Beyond.
—Maura Johnston