The Joy Formidable- The Big Roar

Loudest riot out of Wales since the miners’ strikes

It doesn’t take me to tell you what a state British rock and indie are in right now. Last year’s end-of-year sales charts showed only one album from either genre in the top 20 (the distinctly folk-flavored Mumford & Sons, whose album was released in 2009 anyway). Though of COURSE no one does it for the fame, it’s still a worrying trend that shows the mainstream just isn’t listening.

One band hoping to break the deadlock is North Wales’ The Joy Formidable, consisting perma-blonde-bobbed Ritzy Bryan, her boyfriend bassist Rhydian Dafydd and drummer Matt Thomas. Since the release of their first bombastic single Cradle in 2008, they’ve at times found themselves unsure of their identity. On their major label debut The Big Roar they’ve found it: and boy, it’s something.

Press around the album has rather lazily labeled it as Celebrity Skin-era Hole, probably because of The Joy Formidable’s bolshie blonde front woman. Whilst there are hints of Courtney Love in the mix, really the spirit is closer to early Feeder (albeit more authentic), or last year’s Dinosaur Pile-Up’s version of hard grunge (but far better at every step).

These are hardly fresh influences, but what their debut shows is a knack for suffusing snarling riffs with clear, catchy pop hooks. The songs themselves make very little sense- and quite what Heavy Abacus refers to (except, y’know, for an abacus that’s heavy) is unclear. But who cares? With Bryan’s vocals a sheer force out to have fun and support sturdy as a girder, it hardly matters.

Opener The Everchanging Spectrum Of A Lie flies out of the speaker after a minute or so or rhythmic balloon bursting, yet this is far from a party pooper. There’s no doubt that The Joy Formidable are at their best when sprinting full pelt, visible on a re-recorded Cradle, The Magnifying Glass and Chapter 2. None pull punches in terms of rhythm or fretwork, carried further by Austere, revealing their indie origins with the addictive “ah-ah-ah-ah”s backing.

Best of the lot of Whirring, with Bryan sounding like she’s singing from the top of Snowdon. It builds and builds before exploding into three minutes of gleeful rock noise, building to a tantilisingly explosive climax. It’s pounding, elemental and full of adrenaline.

Hints of shifts in dynamic and texture feel needed in places then, so it’s disappointing that Llaw=Wall feels a little clumsy with a hushed first half followed by an overbearing second. After nine songs of pure energy and forward momentum, it grinds it all to a half, and so sits as something of a deadweight towards the end. Much better is epic closer The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade- combining the two quiet-loud elements in a slightly more thoughtful way. It would make The Pixies proud.

You might not understand what the hell they’re on about half the time, but songwriting and insight can come later, this still being a debut and all. What The Big Roar gives us is the best new rock band to emerge in the last five or so years. Let’s just hope a little loud Welsh blood can infect a few up-and-comers.

4/5

Best Tracks:

Whirring
The Greatest Light Is The Greatest Shade
Austere
Chapter 2