The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar, a review



Just to test the water: WELSH INDIE ROCKERS. AN 8-MINUTE OPENING TRACK.

To the rest of you still reading, thank you. Because whilst these might scare off a few, the Joy Formidable are worth your (however brief) attention. They tick a lot of positive boxes too - female vocalist, Bloc Party-style rock-euphoria sounds, stadium filling anthems. They've been compared to Arcade Fire and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. They had a free iTunes single of the week spot and landed in at #39 in the album chart. It's a slow but exciting debut, for sure.

Ambitious monolith opener 'The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie' is tense, epic, brusque kickoff with a frenzied crescendo almost leaving them with the need to start anew, somewhat reminiscent of Snow Patrol's "Open Your Eyes" calibre. It's coincidentally followed with 'The Magnifying Glass' and an intro of riotous laughter. Um. Well the music that follows is fast, bold and would please virtually any festival-goer ever.



There are quickfire drums and more 'epic'ness in the form of 'I Don't Want To See You Like This' where vocalist Ritzy Bryan shines, varying between sultry whispers and stirring choruses. A high-pitched vocal hook provides 'Austere' with its obvious single potential, showcasing a brief glimpse into their stadium-filling yet refreshingly earnest vibe.

There's a slight predictability about 'The Heavy Abacus' and a lack of variation in the progression and chorus makes it noticeably stale. 'Whirring' is so Yeah Yeah Yeahs inspired it could pass off as a shrine to Karen O. And a brief psychedelic ballad is proffered in the form of 'Buoy', somewhere between 'Pyramid Song' and Velvet Revolver (a gap that, honestly, works).

Shades of U2esque guitars glimmer on '(Maruyama)' with a minimalist, somewhat spooky interlude. However 'Cradle' throws that out of the window, sounding...without want of a better mental image, Yeah Yeah Yeahs with welsh accents. It's energetic and flicks through chords like a hot knife through butter.


'Llaw=Wall' offers a male vocalist for a change of scenery, emphasised with a kind of echoed synth backdrop before launching into anthem'o'clock. By the time 'Chapter 2' arrives you're kind-of hoping for a little variety and are thus disappointed with this. And so we conclude with 'The Greatest Light is the Greatest Shade', a synth-laden affair with fun twists and turns to steer home their rock epic in something fit for a music video with wind machines and crying orphan children or something.

It's an ambitious project for a new artist. But they pull it off - there are nods to all the right influences and aspirations for great things. Whether or not it'll work for them is consequential, but the materials are all here.

Rating: 7/10
Highlights: The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie, Buoy, (Marujama), Austere, The Magnifying Glass
Avoid: Chapter 2, A Heavy Abacus

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues, a review

Image
In 2008 the Fleet Foxes launched onto the music scene with their eponymous debut, landing themselves #1 positions in end-of-year reviews from the likes of Pitchfork, The Times and Mojo. Their unique brand of baroque-fused folk struck a chord with many, and the time has now come for them to follow that success up. In May they will release 'Helplessness Blues', the title track for which they recently released as a free download. The opening track 'Montezuma' is a slow repeat of their signature sound - the version I have unfortunately riddled with a few technical glitches - a minimalist and pensive reflection on life and impending death. In dirth or in excess /Both the slave and the empress/ Will return to the dirt I guess/ Naked as when they came. There's a slight rockabilly tune to 'Bedouin Dress', a slight threat to Robin's claim that the record will be "less poppy, less upbeat and more groove-based". The groove is certainly here, a Garfunkelia
Read more

Lady GaGa - ARTPOP

Image
Ah, the Lady GaGa album cycle. It's rivalled only by the surfacing of a celebrity's nudes in the "what gets the gays riled up" stakes, and is subject to a hideous level of hyperbole, high expectations and Germanotta's own unmistakeable hubris. This time around she's stretched as far as vowing to be the actual first popstar to perform in space (many have claimed they will, but apparently she actually will), has made a typically overstated cameo in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills , and gone down the gimmicky app route that Bjork and Jay Z did to varying results (Bjork's was innovative and interesting, Jay's was done for a deal with Samsung, go figure). GaGa herself has clumsily tread between the two: her own app appeared to be free, as she probably intended, but now something's popped up, most likely thanks to the label, with O2 that charges consumers £1 a week to listen to it a week earlier than its release date. This careless slipping be
Read more

Icona Pop - Icona Pop

Image
Although usually condusive of a bemused shrug (honestly, I swear some of their featured musicians are made up), the 'Best New Track' feature of Pitchfork occasionally throws up something surprising and instantly loveable: I Don't Care by Icona Pop was just one of them. So when this was also recommended by Popjustice, and given my desperate attempts to immerse myself in pop music and simultaneously be cool, I hopped aboard the bandwagon with gusto. And you know what? I love it. That phenomenal single aside, Sweden's newest pop sensations have, off the back of their international (modest) success, find themselves yet to take over the UK or States. Let's hope, then, that they're not doomed to an embarrassing record label drop and future solo efforts on the X Factor (in the same vein as Mini Viva , who had equally brilliant but tragically-ignored singles) or a series of delayed release dates of album #2 ( VV Brown ). The album, however, seeks to buck the
Read more