The genre defying Montreal quartet No Joy are back with new single A Thorn In Garland’s Side.
Wrote and recorded quickly, this track is taken from their forthcoming EP Drool Sucker (to be released on 15 July via Topshelf Records). The band have commented that they “packed in a lot of parts into this song, it shows a lot of different sides of No Joy in a quick flash”.
That’s an understatement. From the ringing phone and fizzing drums to the answering “hello?” and heavy riffs, this song is all punchy layers of sound peppered with delicious bent notes. The vocals, however, are ethereal and resonate in your head while the music pounds around them.
No Joy are a band making music that is notoriously hard to stick a label onto and this track is no exception – it is dream pop but aggressive, it sounds intense but also blissed-out.
It is hard to find a band that transcends so many genre boundaries but No Joy make it seem effortless. Their sound may be hard to define but it doesn’t matter when the result is so addictive.
This article was written for Backseat Mafia.