In their mid-aughts heyday, Brooklyn indie-rockers Oxford Collapse were responsible for one of the blog-rock era’s greatest anthems, “Please Visit Your National Parks,” the highlight of 2006’s excellent Sub Pop LP Remember The Night Parties. After the band’s 2009 breakup, frontman Mike Pace reemerged in 2012 with a new solo project called the Child Actors, and now that project has birthed a full-length album under the name Mike Pace And The Child Actors. Best Boy is all over the place stylistically — the frantic, wistful piano pop of opener “Up The Academy”; the scrappy old-school indie-rock of “Cold Calling”; the acoustic charms of “McKinley”; the peppy, keyboard driven “King Of Corona” — but Pace’s pinched tenor and distinct songwriting touch holds the whole thing together. Esteemed former rock critic and Get Him Eat Him frontman Matt LeMay produced the collection, which is out next week but streaming right now. Listen below.

(via CMJ)

Best Boy is out 1/13 on The Self-Starter Foundation, and Pace plays a record release show 1/16 at Union Hall in New York.