Joyce Manor's one of those few bands I imagine will get righteously elected in the 2010's canon of classic pop punk somewhere down the line. For me, the band's main draw has always been the fairly uniform minimalism, from the brevity of their LPs, the artwork and shirt designs, and especially the songwriting: everything's said confidently and concisely with no great embellishments or soon-to-be-dated production techniques. It's extremely refreshing to have a chorus hit without 10 "gang vocal" overdubs thrown in to heighten 'the emotional impact', in other words. It's just great songwriting speaking for itself.
Finally, after 2 years without a single split or EP, the band have announced the release of their third LP this July, Never Hungover Again, and I'm excited as fuck. It's pretty much never that I swoon embarrassingly for a band's debut and then love the follow-up just as much, but both Joyce Manor and Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired are equally great "long players", delivering the goods in very different ways. I've heard this one'll lean more towards the sound perfected on the self-titled instead of leaping into weirder pastures, but that's totally alright with me.
You can read about it here and check out the new track, "Catalina Fight Song" here. It's an itty bitty minute of greatness that cuts off just in time to frustrate you that there isn't more available. Also, I feel weird inside about accepting Epitaph into my life as an occasional source of greatness, but I guess it'll eventually fade into ambiance like puberty or that time you hydroplaned and learned that driving was technically really dangerous.
Also, there's Frances Quinlan of Hop Along on the cover for no discernible reason!
Here's me being super relevant and on top of the sceeene pt. 2:
Off With Their Heads are a band I've claimed pop-punk allegiance to (DEFEND REAL POP-PUNK STAY TROO LOL PIZZA) since they released Hospitals in 2008, but I think at this particular junction, my heart's not in the right place to give the greater portion of a shit about their freshly hatched 3rd LP, Home.
If you're unfamiliar with OWTH, they're sad. Alternately, fairly angry. Moreover, they've been floating around since 2002, and after shifting out of their initial phase of keyboard-heavy, power-poppy punk, they toughened up, cranked the distortion, and became the crunchy, beardsy pop-punk misery unit making the rounds at punknews to this day.
I should probably stress the "misery" part. The lyrics this band employs run the gamut from "relatable but like come on dude" to "ha ha ha... holy shit" levels of self-loathing, regret, despair, and general fucked-up'edness. It's certainly a load of cathartic fun, or at least was, but somewhere around the release of the band's 2nd LP, In Desolation, the irony-heavy cornerstone of their sound started to slip out of place a smidgen in favor of "artistic growth". Essentially, where the band would once pair heavy, melodic, poppy songs to comically desperate lyrics in a way that was ironic and fun, was now a tendency towards slightly more po-faced songwriting. Throwing in a more serious tone and some power balladry isn't necessarily a bad thing (and I def like lots of 'deep srs artist' bands) but it sort of IS when your lyrics float around this universe:
I'm confused, i'm confused I know i need help, and that's why i'm turning to you I'm having trouble dealing with loss and coming to terms with the fact that it cost me my whole life by running away I am unable to deal with the pain trying to find someone else i can blame It's obvious the only one to blame is me, is me
I mean, that's some uncomfortably honest self-loathing stuff, there. Like one of those super icky moments where your 'pretty good' but not 'super close' friend who always seems like they totally "have their shit together" pulls a 180 and pukes decades of impenetrable negativity all over you, then gets all embarrassed, wipes their eyes and resumes their usual posturing like they didn't just reveal their personality was mostly a mask for deep pain.
But hey, listen to how fun that song is!
See? It's like the lyrics aren't a disturbingly colossal overshare from someone hovering around their 30s when that sweet lead comes in at the end. I'm probably being super harsh here, and I don't doubt the authenticity of these words, but jesus christ dude, you think these issues might stem from somewhere other than your apparent inarguable worthlessness? But that's enough of my incredibly perceptive armchair psychology, take a lisssen to the new lead off single from Home and tell me you aren't scared that something has changed for the worst:
On top of the video seeming really unintentionally laughable (which is kind of an anomaly seeing as there's another video from this album featuring a magical snowman transformation), the tragic back-up vocals and the gloomy chord progression in the chorus make me cringe - something I don't ever recall doing when listening to this band in the past, regardless of how tactless their lyrics were. And holy shit are the lyrics in "Nightlife" embarrassingly blunt. In Desolation had dodgy little bits and pieces throughout that hinted at the band's desire to mature and expand upon their basin of acceptable sounds, but Home is pretty rife with them, and not always in a particularly good way.
To clarify, I'm not saying "omg wtf u guys stick wit what teh fans want" or anything like that (srsly), it's just that I find myself not truly digging their slight shift in a more crooning direction, and honestly, I think my excessive snickering at these songs might be a sign that I've "outgrown" these guys (for lack of a better term). There are some solid songs on here for sure, but after spinning this about a dozen times, I think I might just be a little too self-assured and stable at this point to really get much out of the world's most thematically depressing band toning down their songwriting irony.
If you were a fan of everything they've released to date, I'd definitely recommend checking it out, even though I can't get behind it hxc. If you're new to the band, though, definitely start somewhere around the Hospitals/From The Bottom neighborhood and go from there. I know I didn't make it seem like it, but they're a really sweet band with a ton of great songs, and a sick live unit to boot. Oh, and incongruously, I actually sort of like "Don't Make Me Go". I mean, it's a perfect distillation of every change I just grumped about, but I'm a loose cannon with no allegiances. Also, make sure to check out their family tree if you dig that gritty, bass heavy pop-punk everyone at punknews.org slaps it to like the fading memory of their last meaningful sexual encounter. Ha ha. I'm so irreverent. What does that even mean
