Pop Culture

The Joy Formidable: The Big Roar

By Andy Frisk
March 18, 2011 - 22:58

Mix some heavy guitar distortion and reverb with a bit of white noise. Add a substantial amount of echoing drums (with a sprinkle of double bass throbbing here and there—a la metal—to taste). Toss in some sensually and variably whispered and screamed female vocals. Label it all with some esoteric song names and lyrics then drag it all out a little too long or cut it a little short and you’ve got the perfect recipe for a winning alt rock/drone/slightly shoegaze tinged mega sounding mega band. While The Joy Formidable and their first major label release The Big Roar aren’t that much of a cookie cutter band, they are pretty original (especially these days), they really aren’t anything we haven’t sonically tasted before…but that in no way detracts from their music. It’s some of the best strum and drone that we’ve heard in quite some time. With a major label release, the last ingredient is now in place for them to become the biggest band out of the UK since Muse. Based on the promise of their work on The Big Roar, they just might live up to this expectation.

Their sound is the bastard child of My Bloody Valentine and The Raveonettes who was taught to play the drums by Uncle Lars Ulrich. This child plays faster than both MBV and The Raveonettes (but not as fast as Uncle Lars), and more interestingly than all of them put together. Okay, I’m starting to drown them in comparison and analogy, but a band like The Joy Formidable (or pretty much any alt rock band these days) will have to either live up to the greats that came before them or be—quite fairly—compared and contrasted to them. It’s the music world we live in now. We might not have reached the end of history in global or philosophical terms, but we have musically, at least as far as rock and alt rock are concerned. The originality ended with groups like Throbbing Gristle, the aforementioned My Bloody Valentine (well…they weren’t that original in reality) and Nine Inch Nails (yes, I know they just really brought the noise of Throbbing Gristle to a bigger audience—but Trent Reznor just did it so well and powerfully).

 

Singer/guitarist Ritzy Bryan

 

Even if it’s a mixture and representation of the sounds of their progenitors, it is their sound, and is quite good in and of itself. Its incredibly lush and enveloping while driving at the same time, if a bit long winded and slightly bombastic. The album’s opening track, “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie” which clocks in at 7 minutes and 45 seconds builds and builds to a fuzzy and crashing climax only to be dashed by the album’s second and incredibly concise and strong track “The Magnifying Glass.” It’s a stomping electric guitar riff fest where the metal-ish drumming first rears its head. The rest of the album is packed with similar dichotomies that play well off of each other and paint some pretty wide and colorful sonic landscapes with “Whirring” and “Buoy” forming the albums best listening combo. The mixture of long windedness and short staccato attacks is reminiscent of Billy Corgan’s sonic starts and stops that were present on his band’s first, and least mature, major label release Gish. The comparison (here I go again) is a good one as The Big Roar reeks with the promise that Gish did. Billy’s Pumpkins (a much more literalistic if not artistic way to describe The Smashing Pumpkins as a whole) ended up giving us some of the best alt rock albums of all time. As The Joy Formidable find their mature voice they just might give us some of the most prolific and powerful alt rock since Billy Pumpkin’s heyday. The Big Roar really lives up to its name. It introduces us to a great new band, with a great sound (if not exactly new) that is full of potential. If The Big Roar is this smart and enjoyable, their next roar should be brilliant.    

Rating: 7 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12