Boniface - Boniface

Boniface is another of my Marco Polo Platters. The cover was intriguing, and pretty much screamed nostalgia for me. It doesn't get any cooler than an '80s Fiero on a prairie back road. I had never heard of Boniface before, but considering the kid on the hood of the car wasn't born when the car was manufactured I'm not exactly up with what's new, and I really don't pretend to be in tune with the latest trends. I like music, and if the music likes me we'll get along. 

It's hard to tell whether Boniface is a band, or a musical identity. A glance through the credits and I get the sense the core musicians are Micah Visser, vocals, keyboard, guitars, Joseph Visser, guitars and Michael Dunn, drums. The songs were all written by Micah, with a couple being co-written by Eg White (best name ever) and one by Steph Marsiano. I suspect this is Micah's vehicle.

I was looking forward to hearing what this was all about, and I have to say the introduction wasn't a strong start. "Waking Up in Suburbia" is a slow song, not a ballad but a sombre bit of musical melancholy. I suppose this is going to dovetail into the album's closer "Making Peace with Suburbia" which on the liner credits is incorrectly labelled as "Waking Up in Suburbia" - who am I to bitch and moan about typos. Good Lord have you read any of my stuff? Typos are the least of your worries.

Anyway, from an artistic perspective I suppose this was the way to go. Since the album was already playing I wasn't about to skip tracks. Thankfully the album found it's footing and I have to say Micah really has a great ear. There is a tendency for old farts like me to immediately dismiss things as derivative or boring and then miss out on some really good stuff. This though was balancing that ethereal feeling of new and nostalgia. I suspect it all depends on perspective. For me this evokes a lot of feelings and memories of my angst as a young man trying to figure shit out. The music though is deftly textured and while it may seem to be deliberately mining an old pop vein there's also something fresh and new. I suppose if I was looking for a label this is indie alternative. 

There's also something decidedly Canadian about Boniface's overtly vulnerable approach. Heck, there's even an honest to goodness shout out to late night CBC radio, which back in the '80s was my refuge. Brave New Waves and Brent Bambury made my world a little better. Micah more often than not is  wrapping dark and introspective  lyrics with a deceptively sugary musical coating. It's always a strange experience to sit bobbing your head and tapping your foot and being almost jarred by the content. It's a great trick when pulled off. Not always an easy feat, and it's often easier to get your dog to eat a pill without peanut butter.

Near the beginning of this post I had mentioned the start of the record was a bit like wading through quicksand and it wasn't exactly an opening that grabbed my attention. However, having gone through the songs and the journey with Micah though the lyrics there really was no other way to sequence the songs. The dovetail and thematic conclusion "Making Peace with Suburbia" ties it all together. There's a longing and melancholy as well as a sense of reluctant acceptance. Then again, I may have missed the point, but that's how it felt.

Boniface had the misfortune of being released on Valentine's Day 2020. Right as the world was starting to turn inward and shutdown, Boniface dropped their debut. All of the anticipated hopes and dreams and plans for the album likely evaporated overnight. Who knows what might have been. Is the album good, yes, it is very good. Does it have that spark that makes it something truly special? That's harder to pin down, especially in retrospect. We'll never know for sure, but as it played out it came out and then disappeared. The reality is there is so much good music out there that is just waiting to be discovered that it's often simply boils down to timing and luck.

Boniface was unlucky, but I got lucky when I found the record.

Addendum post record

I suppose I could have meshed this with my reaction to the record, but this is more or less how I experienced the songs, and I didn't have anything to go on other than the notes and songs. This was taken at face value. It was good, or it wasn't. I didn't spend a lot of time digging for information, but there wasn't a lot out there regarding Boniface. Royal Mountain Records didn't have much if anything other than a picture or two of the record back in 2020. I did find an interesting article about Micah that came out a month before the album dropped, and it was so full of promise. In the piece Micah mention their struggles with sexuality, and came out as non-binary. 

Over the last six years the band's website domain has since expired. The bandcamp page has an early version of the song "I Will Not Return as a Tourist" from 2017 and nothing else. The band's FaceBook page has been inactive since July of 2020 when Micah announced they were taking a break from social media (good call). Then I found Michele ii (@bonifacemusic) and it would seem that Micah is now Michele ii and is active and still pursuing her dream. It was not my intention to dead name her with my blog. 

I was writing a point in time and that was then this is now.