“Well, whatever it was, I’ll live without it.”
Joyce Manor’s early concept was a conscious avoidance of the ‘Warped Tour’ pop punk. The approach was an idiosyncratic approach to their sound and songwriting, plus a through-and-through DIY attitude. They successfully charted this course to becoming a mainstay within post hardcore and emo scenes, despite sounding nothing like the rest of the bills they played. They are the scrappy basement band to end them all. The pandemic put a break on their every-other-year streak of ‘L’Ps, so the wait for I Used To Go To This Bar has been longer than the rest, but at least the band have toured extensively to keep audiences engaged.
Since you’re reading this review, you’re probably already aware that Joyce Manor specialise in their micro albums. I Used To Go To This Bar is an extremely lean-and-mean nineteen minutes and three seconds. Like the seventh tray of cocktail stick’d canapés on a night where the pre-drinks feel like yesterday, you might feel even more hungry after this morsel is over. Such a runtime largely precludes introspection, and they duly avoid philosophising; these songs are about being down in the dumps and trying your best to enjoy it. And when a record is so brief, it’s all the more important that all the tracks are good (and, in fairness, the same applies to a five track, eighty minute prog album…).
“I Know Where Mark Chen” begins the record in an amazing stride, injecting pure pop punk energy directly into your frontal lobe. In Joyce Manor style, anything that could be considered ‘fat’ has been trimmed, barely wasting time on an introductory riff and dispensing with pre-choruses. A ripper of a bridge leads to an uncharacteristically blunt delivery of the hook for the band. It’s an unflinching banger, and probably their strongest this side of 2020. New listeners might assume this band is completely serious, but “Falling Into It” follows and demonstrates that Joyce Manor are in fact fucking goofy. This upbeat toe-tapper is muted in its first half and then goes full guitar-hero in the second.
Digging further into the track list uncovers more goofball gems. Another of the record’s singles was “All My Friends Are So Depressed”, a semi-acoustic track with country shuffle drums. You can feel their smirks when they use the bridge for a mini cowboy guitar solo. This shuffle returns on “The Opossum” in double time, bass strutting in country style. There’s even the wheeze of a harmonica on “Well Don’t it Seem Like You’ve Been Here Before”, and “After All That You Put Me Through” and “Well, Whatever It Was” push their three-piece sound out to include corny synths and soft choirs. These elements feel like ironic titbits to keep the touring band busy; they know we don’t put on a Joyce Manor album for sonic breadth or experimentation. It’s cute and hard to hate.
Some of the strongest tracks are in the second half. “I Used To Go To This Bar” merits its status as the title track, bringing busy rhythms made to push pit to whilst gasping for air to sing its chorus. “Grey Guitar” takes us out in the same way that the record opened, a rock song with a lot of attitude and a sombre streak. Asking Joyce Manor for a more dramatic closer would be fruitless – “Constant Headache” likely won’t be topped any time soon – but it does have a noodly guitar lead that you’ll be humming long after the track’s abrupt ending.
Nineteen short minutes later, I Used To Go To This Bar has elapsed, blunder free and with plenty to love. Still, a certain essential something is missing. There’s always a friendly foothold, a chorus or easy hook, within reaching distance. It’s an album of “Christmas Card”, “Big Lie”, and “Gotta Let It Go”-type tracks. Some of the biggest Joyce-bangers are the oddballs, ranging from the less-linear (“Catalina Fight Song”, “Beach Community”) to the obtusely amicable (“Schely” and “Heart Tattoo” may never be topped in this regard). As good as the tracks on I Used To Go To This Bar are, the record is a very even and streamlined experience. Besides the still-charming vocals and a good few quirks, the gnarl of their early DIY sound has been somewhat airbrushed away. It’s far too in-tune, on-kilter, mall-friendly, and lacking in that delinquent energy. It’s as if they’re uncharacteristically worried a producer might walk in and find them having too much fun.
7/10
I Used To Go To This Bar releases through Epitaph Records on the 30th January and can be pre-ordered here.