The Daily Spin, October 1
Joywave | Possession
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: Possession (2020)
Artist: Joywave
Link:
I was wondering how this album got lost in my shuffle, since I’m usually someone who enjoys Joywave and tries to keep abreast of good indie music, when I happened to see the release date on this one - March 13, 2020.
Ah.
It’s not too challenging, then, to examine exactly what forced this album into a pretty specific box, as suddenly the group was faced with the very literal shutdown of the entire world - and sure, streaming was an option, but they couldn’t exactly go play a grand world tour with everything going on.
It’s no secret that we all lost something of ourselves over the past few years, but I do particularly feel for a lot of artists who had hedged their life’s work on something that was ripped from them through no control of anyone else - and yes, it was the smart decision, I’m not a truther freak, but it’s hard not to look at an album like this and wonder what it could have been in the other timeline.
My biggest critique of the record is best described as follows - if Two Door Cinema Club are playing in Target, this is what plays at Walmart. It’s a knockoff, and for a band that did some pretty awesome stuff on both How Do You Feel Now? and Content, I’m left a little disappointed that there’s so little genuine push to a lot of these tracks. It doesn’t feel like they attempted to open a new envelope or develop their sound, and instead regressed to the Hall of Normal, where they can chill with literally every other imitation act.
It’s good listening, don’t get me wrong. Some of these tracks are definite slammers, the sort of music that is going to make it on to some form of my workout playlist, but I am, all things considered, feeling a little bit like maybe this album wouldn’t have made it all that huge regardless.
Rating: 7.6/10
Best Tracks: No Shoulder; Blank Slate; Obsession
Worst Tracks: Like a Kennedy; F.E.A.R.