Songs From Northern Torrance

Sound DNA

• Punk
• Pop Punk

• fuzzy
• restless
• punky

About

Pop-punk, emo revival, all-ages indie rock: How one files Southern California’s Joyce Manor depends more on where the listener is coming from than the band, necessarily. Compiled from home recordings circa 2008 to 2010, <i>Songs From Northern Torrance</i> is a succinct evolution: acoustic guitar-and-drums duo (“F**k Koalacaust”) to joyful full-band noise (“Constant Nothing”), imagistic fragments (“Dhfp”) to heartbreaking flash fiction (“House Warning Party”), songs that barely last a minute to songs with the nerve to push past two. Lyrically, frontman Barry Johnson was already who he’d become: chronicler of semi-suburban dramas between parties you can’t identify but relationships you can readily feel. “At the driving range/You shouted ‘fire away’/I started feeling strange/Thought of taking my life,” he yells during the climactic “Five Beer Plan,” splurging on an extra three seconds for the essential caveat: “I fucking told you so.”

via Apple Music

Tracklist

Credits