Review :: Joyce Manor :: Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired

Written by: Andrea Janov, CC2K Music Editor

Coming off the success of their debut full length in 2011, Joyce Manor has just released Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired. Joyce Manor, named one of LA’s most promising bands by LA Weekly in 2011, answers that accolade with a rather experimental release. This nine track full length clocks in at just over 13 minutes and is in your face the entire time. The most interesting element of this record is that each track is totally different than the ones before or after it.

Track one, These Kind of Ice Skates, has a slow driving drum beat and a deep droning voice that triggers the new wave resurgence Depeche Mode of the early 90s.  Comfortable Clothes has the same new wavey sound with a great screamo section tacked on the end. See How Tame I Can Be has a really interesting distortion element to it. The voice has pleading element to it that claws its way through the static and distortion into the listener’s ears.

Drainage is an unexpected acoustic track. The super low voice that almost whispers so you need to turn up the volume and it isn’t until then that you hear this haunting piano before the track cuts out and abruptly launches into a cover of Video Killed the Radio Star. The verses of this cover are heavier and much more grounded than the original and the chorus is much more distorted and chaotic. This cover is so far removed from the original that the song itself becomes an interesting statement on the message, instead commenting on music through the ages instead of the outlet.

If I Needed You There is frenzied with a pop punk hook buried underneath the fury. Bride of Usher is so slow with a twangy guitar, yet still carries on with the new wave deep voice and cadence that is a kin to the Psychedelic Furs and Love Spit Love. Violent Inside is a poppyer song who’s music can make you bop your head, and there are instances of hooks throughout. The vocals in this track are a bit rawer than on the rest, making me like it more. The times where it gets a bit scratchy are the best moments on the record. I’m Always Tired is another acoustic track that ends with a bit of feedback before the record ends.

It took me a while to refine my reaction to this record, until suddenly it all made sense to me. This album is not made for the fans,  Joyce Manor made it for themselves and they had a damn good time doing it. This is a record that will be split down the middle, fans will love it or hate it, but they will buy this record and they will but the next one, just to see what it is like. All in all, these are interesting songs, but because the tracks are so drastically different it almost seems like a mix tape instead of an album.

Of All The Things I Will Soon Grow Tired  will be released on Asian Man Records on April 17th.