EP Review: Bon-Bon – ‘She Don’t Want To Know’

With only a few online demos to her name, Sian King, aka Bon-Bon, scored a set at the Glastonbury Festival this year, and is now set to release her debut EP, She Don’t Want To Know.

The tunes maintain a somewhat dreamy sensation, but emerging from their low-lying haze are anthemic vocal lines mixing sass, sorrow and Superman. The EP’s interesting array of styles and textures, in combination with Bon-Bon’s dynamic range – from soft and playful utterances to full-blown musical catharsis – make each track an experience, as opposed to simply a song.

The set is kicked off by a restless track named Better Than You Do. It is at first rather rigid and disjointed, which in addition to Bon-Bon’s somewhat discordant wailing over the top makes it almost uncomfortable to listen to. However, through the verses we are weaned off the dissonance and at the chorus we are provided with a fulfilling and zealous pop hook.

This seems to be the way with most of the tunes on She Don’t Want To Know; not that they are unpleasant until the chorus, but in that they start off with a distinct kind of groove and then almost invariably lead to a catchy climax that will satisfy you even if the verses don’t. The title track, for instance, plays with this quasi-rockabilly kind of feel before hitting listeners up with a potent hook and some uplifting harmony to boot. The following Animal is heavy on the synths, some of the lines reminding me of Pink Floyd on their Wish You Were Here album. The final, ‘bonus’ track Be Alright, is of a different nature though; it doesn’t have the same kind of melodic grab, but it is a reflective and melancholy piece of songwriting that is pleasurable in other ways.

The one track yet unmentioned is Lois Lane, which was released previously as a single, and is a brilliant piece of dramatic pop music. It moves from a low-key but sprightly 80s-sounding groove to an explosive chorus, Bon-Bon’s howl cutting straight through the mix and making frequent allusions to Superman’s relationship with Lois Lane, aspects of which are used as metaphors for exploring her own relationship woes: ‘Thought he was my super guy, turns out he was kryptonite’, for example.

There is not a single mundane moment on Bon-Bon’s tempestuous debut EP, She Don’t Want To Know. Hopefully upon its release her career is propelled as rapidly as it was when she released those online demos, as this record deserves attention.

Ben Ryan

::: Renowned For Sound Music Reviews ::: Ben is a 21-year-old student whose taste in music consists of tunes that make him see things. Music for him is a very visual experience; a song has succeeded when it transports the listener somewhere. This is a quality Ben hopes to articulate in writing music reviews for RenownedForSound.com.
Ben capped off his school days at a Sydney high school catering specifically for the musically inclined, but now must balance his musical cravings with university study. To satisfy these cravings, Ben has played guitar in a few groups of differing styles but is often most contented just tinkering with the blues.