No Joy
The semi-recent second wave of shoegaze has potential to become a great drinking game. Band incorporates doo-wop into their shoegazing: drink. Band attempts beach-rock and dream-pop crossover: drink.
Montreal’s mostly-female No Joy fall into the “new band avoids attempting to fix what has never been broken” category.
The reverb-heavy effect-laden acid wave of No Joy’s debut LP Ghost Blonde lands all the punches it needs to — the garage psychedelia of “Hawaii” is a blaring rush of excited pedal-pushing; the brilliantly rambunctious “Still” is so infectious that I’m compelled to create a new toxicity measurement system just to illustrate it.
The group doesn’t have much to add to the conversation, but No Joy deserves due credit for taking you back to the first time you ever spun a shoegaze record. It seems clever and fresh again. And they make the “new shoegaze” drinking game a little less dangerous.
DOWNLOAD: “Hawaii”
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