The Big Roar
Artist: The Joy Formidable
To paraphrase Eastbound & Down’s Ashley Schaeffer, this is the kind of music that you can feel down in your plums. The smattering of percussion that welcomes other sounds in piece by piece until it crescendos into the opening verse of “The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie.” The album starts and doesn’t let up until its final moments, and all I could do was sit back in my ergonomic office chair and wonder aloud, for what had to be the millionth time, “Why isn’t this the biggest band in the world?”
Everyone thinks that about the music they love, don’t get me wrong. We all believe our favorite artists should overshadow everyone else’s favorite artists, especially if someone has made the mistake of loving a popular band.
This is a rare instance, though, where the question is genuine.
The building blocks of greatness are not only here, but they are shattered. Greatness is achieved in the way Van Halen or Guns ‘N' Roses achieved greatness with their debuts. That is not hyperbole. Plums never lie.
I remember the first time I ever heard the song, “Whirring.” This will come up time and again, but I stand behind the Pandora algorithm as the best digital music curation has ever been. More than any other service could, I have discovered so many incredible bands by simply leaving certain channels on. In this case, I was listening to Foo Fighters radio (back when it was cool to like them) at work.
It was like the first time hearing your child cry after birth. The air changes, a tear streams down your cheek, and you realize something incredible has officially entered this reality. It’s the kind of song that carves a nook into the grooves of your brain to live forever, nestled between your lifelong love of Led Zeppelin and pepperoni pizza from your favorite local pizza joint growing up.
Like the entire album, “Whirring” is not just big and loud, but it’s dynamic, unexpected, and has some of the most creative arena rock you’ve ever heard. The record almost makes you worried for the band because it feels as if every idea they ever had and will ever have is packed into 12 songs at about 50 minutes in length.
Will they be able to make more music? If so, how?
(Spoiler alert: They did, and it’s still so goddamn good.)
“Whirring” is also one of those songs that I associate with a very, very, very specific image. As someone who has struggled with weight all his life, I can’t help but imagine the song playing at the end of a movie, just before it cuts to black, about a teenager who finally decides to take his life into his own hands and lose weight.
It’s such a specific image, I know. But this song does so much with its opening chords that I can’t help but picture that specific thing.
Stay with me on this. Imagine a charming indie coming-of-age story about a fat kid in high school who is trying to find his way, and by the end of it, he doesn’t miraculously become skinny and sexy, but instead finally has his mental health worked out so that he can start to work out his body. So, the final image of the movie would be the kid going for a jog as this song starts, then as Ritzy, our intrepid lead singer of The Joy Formidable, starts the first verse… cut to black.
Now you understand a little more about how my brain works.
There are uplifting moments — “I Don’t Want to See You Like This” and “A Heave Abacus” immediately come to mind. There’s also menace. You try not to be intimidated by the maniacal Joker-esque laugh that introduces “The Magnifying Glass.”
For a great time, listen to this record at dusk on a beach, especially with waves around. Find a cove or a hidden pocket and just sit and listen. Like the album cover, it feels as if a giant kaiju is going to explode, tsunami in hand, out of the sea and engulf you. There is a dread there, but there’s also a sense of welcoming, like finally giving yourself over to Cthulhu because you’re ready to go.
So, go.
This is the first record I wanted to talk about on Album Journal. Like Sumol (a Portuguese soda that I grew up loving and getting fat on), this is an album that, 10 times out of 10, is a hit with everyone I recommend it to.
I’m excited to share more — still trying to come up with an exact word for what I’m doing here — write-ups on albums. It’ll be a constant rotation of albums I love, albums I’ve never heard, big ones, small ones, and so on and so forth.