| ⭐✨ |
Joyce Manor have been making albums for 16 years. That’s 16 years of needing to sit down, jam out ideas and thoughts, structure them into songs, place them into a tracklist, and release it into the world. That’s 16 years of needing to spin mostly boilerplate power pop and emo cuts into their own release cycles. Borrowing somewhat from the hallowed halls of 2000’s folk punk ala The Front Bottoms circa their self-titled, or the frenetic pace of AJJ’s most revered work, Joyce Manor do their best to dilute hearty musical styles down to a barely-flavoured cordial. Though I can safely say I’ve never been a massive Front Bottoms guy, I will take their earnest angst and emotional stakes before I put the needle down on something like Joyce Manor’s latest.
I get bad Weezer inclinations on songs like ‘Well, Whatever It Was’. This would fit right in on their Black Album, or really any of their lame modern day output. The sickly sweet rhythm guitar and peppy drums, paired with a phoned-in vocal and lyrical performance, do better to represent the creative rutt that this band is in than my mere mortal words could ever do. Even in sections where the band is going for broke, kicking up the tempo and the distortion just a fraction like on the title track, the results are middling. The snotty singing and flat production sabotage proceedings right out of the gate. Even if I weren’t too excited about the tune itself, a bit of amplified performance or finesse never hurt anyone.
There are only so many times I can hear dawdling guitar arpeggios standing in for actual riffs before I mentally log off. ‘Well, Don’t It Seem Like You’ve Been Here Before’ takes the piss out of me, and turns me into a punchline. This ‘Barenaked Ladies’-ass sing-along tries its hand at a harmonica solo in the track’s finale, like it’s trying to prove its folky credentials. Yet, I have never heard any musician make that instrument sound as pathetic as it does here. I would consider just removing it at this point. It serves nothing but to remind me and any other poor soul listening just how much of a slapdash hunk of hogwash this project is. Its only saving grace, genuinely, coming in the form of the shocking sign of a pulse that is the opener. Hyped vocals and anthemic guitar leads kiss my eardrums sweetly, almost as if to apologise for the calamity that was to follow. It was too little, too early unfortunately.
Dan Will Review 