AARTH shows the Joy Formidable pushing out of their comfort zone while still retaining the raw power and dynamic shifts found on Hitch.
For a genre named “indie rock,” there are surprisingly few indie acts that really seem like they enjoy rocking out. With constant competition to stand out from the pack, most new releases try to keep up with the latest trends or try a new sound that comes completely out of left field. It may not be chic, but sometimes you just want to hear good ol’ guitar, bass, and drums being played really loud and enthusiastically. God bless the likes of Spoon for being a standby in cases like these.
Welsh trio the Joy Formidable have largely flown under the radar as one of the hardest rocking indie bands out there. They played around with other subgenres when first hitting the scene, namely shoegaze, but in 2016 their third album Hitch brought things back to their rock roots. Oscillating between mild rock accompanied by piano and flute to some of the heaviest guitar you’ve ever heard from indie rockers, Hitch was a sprawling yet straightforward effort that stood out for its simplicity amidst a field long known for its quirks.
Two and a half years later, AARTH shows the Joy Formidable pushing out of their comfort zone while still retaining the raw power and dynamic shifts found on Hitch. There are more intricacies to grab your attention this time around, but the album rarely goes beyond a broad characterization as “rock.” If Hitch was the Joy Formidable returning to their roots, then AARTH is the band slowly extending its branches outward.
AAARTH opens with what’s perhaps the most interesting song the Joy Formidable have released: “Y Bluen Eira,” Welsh for “The Snowflake.” The band has never been shy about representing their homeland – “Underneath the Petal” and “The Brook” from Hitch had Celtic tinges, and they released a series of Welsh-language singles titled “Aruthrol” – but “Y Bluen Eira” marks their first studio album track entirely in Welsh. Even the album’s title is a reference to the Welsh word “arth” meaning “bear,” with extra a’s added to make it sound like an exclamation. If somewhat-obscure indigenous British languages don’t impress you, the song is a melodic tour de force that starts with glitch-like effects and wavers between heavy riffs and chant-like vocals. Towards the end, drummer Matthew James Thomas builds to what sounds like will be an instrumental breakdown to rival “Whirring” from the band’s debut, but fades quickly instead. Even if I would have preferred the track to go on for several more minutes, this is a minor complaint for a very strong start to AAARTH.
While the Joy Formidable have previously experimented with more unconventional melodies like the weird caterwaul of “The Maw Maw Song” from Wolf’s Law, AAARTH takes things to a new level. “Cicada (Land on Your Back)” is the band at their most psychedelic, complete with what sounds like a sitar, bongos, and sounds of the titular insect. “Dance of the Lotus” likewise leans into psychedelia, with a guitar part that edges into metal. At the album’s midpoint, “What For” opens with what sounds like a boxing announcer before delivering one of the album’s strongest melodies. This already places it into “good” song territory, but it really becomes a standout track once you notice its copious lead guitar effects and subtle shift to an acoustic guitar and synthesizer at the chorus. These all may seem like relatively small tweaks, but the delicate application of these new sounds allows them to act in a complementary, not overwhelming, manner.
Despite all of this innovation, much of AAARTH sees the Joy Formidable on familiar turf. Single “The Wrong Side,” is a fairly straightforward rock song that begins monotonously with a single repeated chord, but grows livelier until culminating in an over-the-top guitar solo. While this type of gradual crescendo has become one of the band’s tools of the trade, the Joy Formidable’s true trademark is juxtaposing frontwoman Rizty Bryan’s whispers with explosive guitars. You can hear this soft-hard contract prominently on “Go Loving,” “You Can’t Give Me,” and especially closing track “Caught on a Breeze.” It’s a sound they’ve been honing since releasing their debut EP a decade ago, and while it definitely works well for them, it does make AAARTH feel a little indistinguishable from Hitch at times.
The only stumbling blocks on AAARTH stem from the flow of the album, namely the somewhat awkward placement of its softer tracks. To confess, I’ve never been too fond of the Joy Formidable’s quieter moments, and was initially so drawn to debut album The Big Roar because of its intensity and sublime transitions. Now, after experiencing the eerie trippiness of “Cicada (Land on Your Back)” you’re introduced to “All in All,” where the most prominent instrument is…xylophone. It’s enchanting and all, just a bit of a buzzkill. Similarly, “Absence” features delicate piano arpeggios, but is sandwiched between the vaguely White Stripes-ish “The Better Me” and the metal-ish “Dance of the Lotus.” These tracks potentially could have worked to close the album like “The Turnaround” did with Wolf’s Law, but they currently feel like speedbumps between that separate AAARTH’s vigor.
By the time Hitch was released, the Joy Formidable already felt like a multifaceted band. They could repeatedly blow your speakers, show off some totally unexpected rhythms, and even occasionally take things down a notch. AAARTH takes all of these skills and stretches them even further towards their breaking point, once again showing the band’s dexterity. With something for everyone, it might not satisfy all listeners all the time, but its new reaches and complexities show that the Joy Formidable have earned their place as one most intriguing indie rock bands out there.
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