John Grant - Boy From Michigan (2LP) - Deluxe Edition

John Grant’s Boy From Michigan arrived in June 2021, and it plays like a reckoning with origin stories. Produced by Cate Le Bon, it leans into the synth architecture that has defined his last decade, but the mood is even more intimate. The title points to Buchanan, Michigan, where he was born, and the songs sift through childhood memories and the myths of the American dream with the dry wit and sharper ache Grant does so well.

Le Bon’s production suits him. Where Pale Green Ghosts pulsed with Icelandic club chill and Love Is Magic had a gearhead sparkle, Boy From Michigan feels lived in. The synths are plush, sometimes queasy, and the arrangements move with the logic of memory. The title track sets the tone, a slow bloom of keys and low end that frames Grant’s baritone as he walks back through streets and suburbs that formed him. It is a patient opener, more reverie than overture, and it earns every second.

County Fair is one of those classic Grant portraits where nostalgia and dread share a seat. You can almost smell the diesel and cotton candy, but little details twist the scene, and by the time the chorus lands, the fairground reads as a house of mirrors. Rhetorical Figure flips the mood. It is brisk and wiry, a pop grammar lesson that doubles as a confession of obsession from a guy who has long loved languages. Grant studied and worked in translation before music took over, and that fascination with meaning and misdirection crackles in the track’s clipped phrasing and neon synths.

The Cruise Room is a standout for anyone who knows Denver. The title nods to the historic bar in the Oxford Hotel, all art deco glow, and Grant uses it as a portal to wider recollections. He has written about Colorado across his career, but this time the lens is softer, more specific, less about escape and more about the sediment memories leave behind. Your Portfolio aims its satire at moneyed bravado. It sounds lush, almost luxurious, while the lyric needles at hollow status games. That tension is classic Grant, sugar on the rim with a bitter center.

Grant has always balanced his bite with tenderness. Even when the subject is hard, he slips in a melody that invites you in. The choruses here are unhurried but sticky. Piano often anchors the drama, and the synth bass moves like a tide. Le Bon keeps plenty of air in the mixes, so you hear Grant breathe between lines, a small human detail that fits the confessional pull. It is not a flashy record. It is a carefully lit room.

Critics picked up on that. The Guardian and Pitchfork both praised the album’s scope and frank storytelling, and fans quickly latched onto the title track, County Fair, and Rhetorical Figure as setlist staples. It also felt like a summation, a late chapter that draws a line back to Queen of Denmark while living firmly in the present. The politics are there, the jokes and jabs are there, but the beating heart is childhood, family, and the long, slow work of understanding where you come from.

If you collect John Grant vinyl, Boy From Michigan is a rewarding spin. The low frequencies are generous, the vocal sits forward, and the dynamics make sense at home volume, not just on headphones. I have seen copies move quickly, so if you are trying to buy John Grant records online, do not sleep on it. People who want John Grant albums on vinyl for that evening-in glow will find this one particularly addictive. And if you happen to be sifting through bins in a Melbourne record store, or browsing vinyl records Australia sites, keep an eye out for a clean Boy From Michigan vinyl pressing. This is a record that invites a second side right after the first ends.

Grant’s catalog has plenty of neon and plenty of night. Boy From Michigan brings both, but it also brings morning light, the kind that shows every crack in the paint and somehow makes the room more beautiful. It is one of his most human records, produced with care, sung with a steady hand, and written by someone who knows that memory is a map you draw as you go.