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About half of the songs on Paper Airplanes’ latest album, Boyhood, work.  The other half unfortunately can be easily scrapped.  There are too many extraneous musings about nothing, unneeded instrumental solos that go nowhere and, quite frankly, many of the songs sound similar.

But, even with the downsides, the gems on this album are pure gold.  The first track, “The Fences,” is brilliant in its progressive insanity from birth to death.  It starts off with lead singer Marcus Stoesz’s quiet vocals singing:  “Sometimes the world brings me back to old / Never mind the fences / I once called home.”  And strumming behind Stoesz’s vocals is a soft acoustic guitar.  The blending of the frail voice with the light guitar gives the track an early demo feel, as if the Paper Airplanes recorded the song in their basement.  But then, the song really breaks out and by the end it’s in full force as a respectful beginning track.  The other great thing about having “The Fences” start off the album is that it figuratively holds the hand of the listener and welcomes them into the album.  Too many records nowadays start off strong with their heaviest single.  The Paper Airplanes know this is jarring for the listener, so they take it slow and eventually build into the album.

But that build-up only works if you have some substantive songs.  And in the tracks that follow “The Fences,” the lyrics are all there, but the beats feel uninspired and imitative of well-known emo/alternative rock bands.  And it’s a damn shame, because the Paper Airplanes have important messages and yarns to spin.  For example, on “True Men Like You Men,” the band sings about the pangs of growing up and the realization you’re no longer a child.  “I wanna be that age again,” croons Stoesz.  But behind these beautiful words are this annoying accordion solo and the slowest of slow drumbeats.  The song never gets off the ground.  It is beyond odd when Stoesz vocals are demanding for a faster song, but the instruments lag behind.  There is a purely instrumental solo in the middle of the song, but it comes off as a weird entry, as if the band thought a solo should go there, so why not just throw one in.

Okay, enough about the downsides.  How about the album’s title track, “Boyhood?”  This one, the album’s strongest song, reeks of originality and novelty.  There are no vocals, only instruments, but the image the song puts in your mind is one of growing up and long summers away from school.  And once again, it starts off like “The Fences,” slow and welcoming.  An acoustic guitar gently strums, so gently it sounds like the guitarist was trying to tune his instrument.  But then, it opens up with a violin, cello and a cacophony of instrumentation.  The song is sweeping in its scope, and you can’t help but get sucked into its power.  Too bad this doesn’t occur with the entire album.