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The Joy Formidable - The Big Roar (Atlantic)













I find sometimes that the hardest records for me to write about are the ones I'm currently the most passionate about, particularly when they come from a new artist that I've fallen head over heels for. Its one thing to pound out a couple hundred words about the latest killer album from a long-time favorite, especially when you've had years to consider and contemplate your relationship with the music, but this become so much more difficult when you are still poking and prodding at the edges and trying to figure out why this music appeals to you so. This is precisely the predicament I find myself in every time I sit down to write about The Joy Formidable. On the surface, it isn't hard to see why The Big Roar would appeal to me, the band mines a guitar-heavy alt-rock sound that was extremely formative to my musical tastes at an impressionable age, but I'm at a loss to explain why this particular trio instead of others striking a similar vein. As I listen and re-listen to the album over and over again, trying to understand just why it has such a hold over me (not at all as much of a chore as that sentence may imply), I think it comes down to moments more than anything else. The moment, just about four minutes in, when "Whirring" goes from just a fantastic indie pop song to a cathartic guitar explosion. The drumroll that ushers in the chorus of "Cradle" and the buzzsaw guitar line that follows. The moments of respite that "Maruyama" and the first half of "Llaw=Wall" offer. The arena-filling "A Heavy Abacus". I could go on and on and on, but I'd run the risk of closing this tab to go listen to the album again to find even more. I think part of me was a little scared to love this as much as I did initially, I didn't want to know I was that susceptible to nostalgia and able to fall for the first trio with a crush-worthy lead singer and an aspiration to the more stadium-worthy aspects of the Smashing Pumpkins at their prime. Fortunately I was able to get over myself long enough to remember that one of the reasons I connected so deeply with music during those impressionable years was the comfort it offered and The Joy Formidable is comforting as hell, be it 1995 or 2011.