January the 30th has been ridiculously stacked with good releases, but don’t forget to make a small amount of room for this new album from Joyce Manor. Out on Epitaph Records.
Joyce Manor have been kicking around since 2008 where they emerged from the Californian punk-rock scene. They have matured and evolved over the course of their previous six albums and moved into a wider range of rock-adjacent sounds. The new album is blink and you’ll miss it short with nine tracks averaging close to the two-minute mark. Despite a less than twenty-minute run time, this is a dense offering with a load of massive tunes.
‘I Know Where Mark Chen Lives’ kicks out the gate with a massive monster of a skate-punk-rock chorus and is an absolute beast of a tune. It is easy to see why they have over 900,000 monthly listeners on Spotify with work like this.
‘Falling Into It’ ups the melody and showcases their rock harmonies before crushing it on the back-end. ‘All My Friends Are So Depressed,’ makes a decent impression of The Smiths and other bands of that era, with a few more cuss words.
My absolute favourite track of the album is ‘Well, Whatever It Was’ which just bounces in and sweeps you along with it. These guys are a fine set of musicians and do what they do extremely well.
Reading Festival always does a good line in US bands you hadn’t listened too properly but are actually amazing each year. Last year we got Waterparks, Joyce Manor would be an excellent addition to the line-up for this year.
This album flashes past, but the songwriting and execution, the understanding of the genres they work within, is all immense. These guys are genuinely brilliant, and this album serves as a neat reminder of that, featuring all their different strengths from over the last 18 years of work.
Essential Tracks: ‘I Know Where Mark Chen Lives,’ ‘All My Friends Are So Depressed,’ ‘Well, Whatever It Was,’ ‘I Used To Go To This Bar’ and ‘Well, Don’t It Seem Like You’ve Been Here Before?’
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