Sometimes art is the most intriguing and shapes your outlook the most when it is mysterious, when you don't know what the fuck it is saying or where it is going. That is what came to mind when I dipped into "The Gorge" by Atlanta's Jr. Joy. The track from their debut album "Dr. Boy" is a trip. It feels delightfully odd, sort of improvisational (whether it is or not), free form in it's spirit and construction and yes, mysterious and magical. It made me curious and inspired and longing for this kind of psyche rock. Yes, I mean psyche not psych although the sound is totally psychedelic with elements of art punk, experimental rock, jazz fusion, touches of math rock (I suppose). Experience "Buckshot" with it's waffling aesthetic, dreamy fever-esque eruptions and crazy carnival tones and it feels like an amalgam of sleep deprivation and that guy who hangs around the liquor store who you give a wide berth. "Sicophant" feels like Devo if they were a jazz quartet (I love the explosive drums). There are mantric cyclical things happening that feel infused with a wonderful sort of childlike wonder like the Brit pop dream theater of "Lie Down Flat". I love the post punk downbeats, the deconstruction, the weirdness and tones like instruments falling down the stairs. There are surprising dramatic instrumental diversions too like "Dr Boy, Remember Your Training" that feels like one of those crushingly disturbing moments of beauty in a David Lynch film. The daring opening track, "Fortify", might feel the most broadly cinematic and even the most accessible as a art rock, art punk song. It screams with patterned guitar lines, building clashing sounds burning and falling down and then steps right into... fucking right into a gleeful upscale party, decadent and sinking. My mind is gleefully blown.
Jr. Joy exists for me as a psyche rock band, a new term. I have always contended that music exists as sonic Rorschach tests and I guess (in my mind) Jr. Joy's inkblots are just way more obtuse than most. I thought of listing an amalgam of other artists who came to mind briefly while I experienced Jr. Joy's soundscapes but then decided not to. Part of the enjoyment with a band as sideways as this is not expecting anything.
Jr. Joy is Tyler Born (keyboards, vox), Jonny Collazo (drums, vox), Stephen Meisel (production, vox), Drew Vandiver (guitar, vox), and Vicente Contreras (Clarinet).
Jr. Joy is a four piece art punk band from Atlanta, Georgia.
While focusing their sound on harsh textures and driving rhythms, they blend their post punk experimentation with elements of psychedelia, free jazz, and shoegaze.
Their debut album, “Dr. Boy,” is an ambitious attempt to capture their influences while introducing audiences to a band that will continue to impress in the coming years.
Jr. Joy, art punk, indie rock, post punk, math rock, psychedelic, free jazz, shoegaze, Atlanta, Georgia, debut album "Dr. Boy", scattershot, divergent, experimental
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