by Conor Lochrie (@conornoconnor)
Just over one year since their third album, Sun Into Flies, New Jersey-based brothers Nick and Shane Sullivan returned with its follow-up, Perfect Gray. It’s more of the same from the pair but with slight positive alterations: excellent slowcore but with emboldened sonic exploration. They recorded once again with Bradford Krieger (Horse Jumper of Love, Ian Sweet), although this is their first release for Philadelphia label Julia’s War (Club Soda, Bleary Eyed).
Listening to Perfect Gray in a Melbourne lockdown, I was struck by its suitability for this time. The raw minimalism, the hesitant rhythm, the downbeat tempo; it all felt very relatable to the feeling of being stuck inside (just consider that album title too). Yet what stops a Joyer listener from sinking into the slowcore mire over fifteen songs is their little notes of individuality. Coming from a film background, they craft intriguing VHS-inspired music videos, their slacker lyrics often enhanced with surrealist imagery; it’s never too bleak, retaining a sense of hopefulness in the scramble for meaning. They are, for ease of comparison, warmer than Slint and not as sullen as Sparklehorse.
They begin the record with its strongest track, “Worst Thing,” about a health scare Shane experienced a while ago that ended up being nothing at all. It’s followed by “Crows,” filled with woozy synths, one of those little aforementioned diversions from their preferred genre. “Cranky Boy,” the lead single, is welcomingly playful, far less serious than what surrounds it, as close to commercial as Joyer is likely to ever come.
For the most part, though, the atmosphere is laden with melancholy. Most songs begin resolutely slow with a count in instrumental - sometimes an ominous guitar line, less often an impactful piano line - before the hissing vocals arrive on top. The vocals are always there to service, not dominate, and are at their most memorable on “Nothing,” the warbling and wobbly delivery recalling early Alex G. Guests arrive to offer depth, including producer Bradford on “Lucky” and “I Was Wrong,” while the excellent lo-fi artist Melaina Kol (himself an Alex G acolyte) pulls quadruple duty on “Pulled Teeth” - synth, percussion, melodica, additional vocals - in a rattling and odd piece that has Kol’s influence splashed across it.
Joyer are utterly unvarnished and unhurried, unafraid to leave in jarring edits, as on “In The Dirt,” which splits the song into two opposing styles midway through. It’s the warmth of the playing that matters; it’s the reigning naturalism that is relatable. In my review of their previous album Sun Into Flies, I wrote, “To listen to Joyer is to miss live music: not of the large concert arena type, nor a neighborhood bar show, but simply just a wonderful house show.” It’s a sentiment that, if anything, I agree with now more, given the pandemic has been going on for a further fourteen months.
The first place I’ll be heading, when the chance arises, is a ramshackle old Victorian house in the Inner Suburbs, to catch up with friends on the rickety porch, listening at the faintly audible band inside, a band who will be very much like Joyer, a group of true and authentic DIY musicians playing for the love of playing; one day it would be nice to catch Joyer do the same in person.