Joie de Vivre
Summer Months
Count Your Lucky Stars; 2009
The press release for this record states that the music of Joie de Vivre “sounds like the band your older brother used to listen to circa August 1997 in a Midwestern state.” The solitary exception that I take to describing this Illinois-based band in such a manner is that, in August of 1997, I was that oldest brother and I introduced music of this nature to my three younger brothers while residing in southeast Texas. But past that, the comparison is more than apt, as this sextet has put together a seven-song debut release that calls to mind the best and brightest of second-wave emo (’94-’99). Summer Months is the music of Mineral, The Promise Ring, Dear Ephesus, and Pedro The Lion brought together into one highly distilled, very tasty beverage.
All of the musical pieces and parts that made the scene so memorable are here and remain intact. There’s a big voice that’s plaintive, cracking, and never quite on key, the guitars are big, crunchy, and slightly discordant, and the pounding drums mean that the band is prone to massive crescendos. Of course, there’s a lot of “quiet-loud-quiet-loud” going on, and the tempos of the songs are quite similar, but much of the indie rock of this era employed such tactics. It’s difficult for me to listen to “Magnet,” “Handshakes,” and “It’s Fiction” without conjuring up all kinds of memories in my heart and mind from high school and college.
Joie de Vivre blatantly draws from the heydey of classic ‘90s emo, before eyeliner and tight jeans were in vogue for the scene. Thus, because the band is unapologetic about its influences, Summer Months proves to be a refreshing take on a much-misunderstood genre and is a far cry from being a mere boring anachronism. Time will tell if these gentlemen are on the forefront of bringing this sound back into our ears.
December 15th, 2009 08:46
December 21st, 2009 08:38