The boy from Eggs is back with a solo record that picks at many parts of musical legend with, incredibly, a strong bow in the direction of Prince. It takes some balls to emulate the Great Purple One, and Beaujon gives it his darndest. He certainly pulls it off with the album’s opener, “Truer Than the Wheel,” which has obviously been welling up inside him for a while. The song is a wonder of scope and ambition: With a simple melodic outline and more falsetto than a Gibb family reunion, it sounds like an attempt to emulate the music the Artist has allegedly buried in a time capsule for release in the year 3000. Beaujon soon takes a goofier turn with “Andy,” sounding like a ’70s attempt at a ’50s revival, which is followed shortly by the sub-Pixies glower of “Three-Finger Salute.” It’s the lighter moments that shine through and engage: “Angry Canadians” is a treasure, reminiscent of an old TV theme song; and “Twist of Separation” perversely describes the unglamorous deaths of many Beaujon chums in the most breezy way possible: “Here’s one for a childhood friend/Whose husband flew a Cessna Twin/But he was in his cups/When he took her up/And the landscape took them in.” The album brims with such unsentimental, unsettling imagery, particularly “Dots Per Square Inch,” a bitter tirade describing a battle between a girl, a guy, and the city—with the city winning. A Raw-Boned June is full of complicated mood swings—something to confuse the kids, as well as exorcise a few of Beaujon’s demons.—Dale Shaw