Joyce Manor has made somewhat of a career of dropping beloved albums that hit faster than a Circle Jerks album. Joyce Manor’s 2014 effort Never Hungover Again shot the band to underground fame despite running 19 minutes, and I Used to Go to This Bar is similarly compact clocking in right at the same spot.
A pretty defining trait of what is required of a great album is the strength of the opening song. So much relies on that opener setting the tone, which is doubly important when you’re not leaving the listener a ton of time to kind of let the mood develop. I Used to Go to This Bar nails that important milestone with aplomb. I know where the chorus of the opening track “I Know Where Mark Chen Lives” has lived since I first heard it (that place would be certainly be rent free in my head) and I’ve been more than happy to let it kick up it’s feet on the couch. It’s a punchy AF garage rock anthem that absolutely steamrolls it’s way to close. Besides having hooks aplenty, the standout moment for me is the super fun bridge section which has a lo-fi build into the final chorus, and a MASSIVE stereo pick slide that lasts about 3 seconds long which goes from the left speaker to the right speaker like a train howling past. I heard it for the first time on one of my morning runs and had to literally stop and text Derrick Chan (our producer for Kindergarten Cartel + Related to Strangers) and tell him that we’ll be ripping off that idea on our new album. So yeah, look out for that at some point in the future.
The rest of this album is similarly well-paced and filled with ear worms. The absolutely epic guitarmony crescendo of “Falling Into It” which echoes the late great stylings of Thin Lizzy, the lo-fi beach rock vibe of “All My Friends Are So Depressed”, the 90’s alternative rock bounce of “Well, Whatever It Was”, and the punk rockabilly meets Blink-182 melodic choices in the album’s title track are just a handful of highlights. There’s a real danger to writing a 19-minute album in that it demands you offer offer enough variety in the ear candy department to make it feel longer than it is, while still retaining some staying power to demand a follow up listen. Joyce Manor definitely nailed that here and quickly became an album that I’ve become destined to play twice in a row every time I flip it on.
Standout Songs: “I Know Where Mark Chen Lives”, “Falling Into It”, “All My Friends Are So Depressed”, “I Used To Go To This Bar”, “The Opossum”
