Joyce Manor – “Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired”

Joyce Manor – “Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired”

April 12, 2012 · by jpapandreas · in ,

By: Jay Papandreas

A short record deserves a short review. Joyce Manor’s full discography, minus a bootlegged show that I have, is about an hour.  Their new album, Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired, makes up 13 minutes of that.

It’s not a long album, obviously.  Some would argue it’s too short. There are grindcore albums longer than this. But to put it in perspective, the last Joyce Manor album was released just last year and was only 20 minutes long. The self-titled album came out to critical acclaim and snagged them the top spot on the Punknews year-end lists.

The Torrance, CA foursome’s first album was a blur of unstoppable pop-punk meets Morrissey meets Guided By Voices.  It’s an album that cut everything that you could cut to still make a great record. Even without my favorite song by them, “Chumped,” the songs on the self-titled are bare-bones barnburners.  It’s an exercise the genre needs more often.

Luckily, the new album expands on this.  As previously mentioned, it’s 13 minutes long and comprised of nine tracks.  It’s also being billed as a full-length. The songs are over as soon as they start; however, the more you listen to it, it sounds like one big song, and it’s a great one.

It’s weird to listen to a song like “Comfortable Clothes” that ends with blastbeats and segues almost flawlessly into ‘80s-new wave-throwback “See How Tame I Can Be.”  Weird, and at the same time, oddly appealing.  Acoustic lo-fi songs “Drainage” and “I’m Always Tired” wrap up each side of the record and while some have expressed the feeling that these songs are a waste, I couldn’t disagree more.

I literally haven’t found a part of this album that I don’t like.  Originally, I thought it wasn’t long enough, but the more I listen to it, the more I end up listening to it four or five times in a row. It’s a good record on first listen, but it’s even better the seventh time.

8.5/10 

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