SPEEDY WUNDERGROUND 14th October 2022
Listen to the lead single: ‘Wild Joy’. It opens this EP and has all the joys of the release. Sprechgesang (so on-message for 2022) and smart music, laid-back with sparky post-punk snarled guitar at the chorus and I’m a sucker for a vocal backing-line too. Is his name a reference to joy or the Spanish word for jewellery? It sparkles and yet explores joy and it’s antithesis.
Laconically lyrical, dry and witty, the tone is a combination of leftfield Canadian observation and English humour. He manages to fuse serious images like a mother checking her baby’s still breathing with the absurdity of commenting he’s never seen a dog eat a dog or a rat win a race. Atop squawky sax, ticking rhythms and illustrative guitars, ideas like this become a sort of poetry. The music is the work of Dan Carey and a full partner here in the songs.
This collection of songs quietly explores the end of dreams as youth passes into middle-age but in a wry way, an amused smile at past and current follies. He remembers past Wild Joys yet his excitable delivery tells us that the facility hasn’t left him. What he has grown into is an amused observation of his feelings: “I sit around and wait for cold calls/ at least they are honest about my plan/ and that I over paid.”
He fuses memories of being a painter to his brutal performance management review at work, lack of job satisfaction and acceptance of ever-dropping standards; “just let the dog eat from the table”. This is somehow deeply pleasing as a portrait of a human soul as well as a satisfying musical noise. Just all round balanced and cool. Pretty generous too, at twenty-three minutes and six songs.
This is what happens to slackers when they grow up. Older; still slack.