When musicians choose to walk the thin line of emotive and
desperation soaked musical undertones while keeping an all-out heavy aggressive
and destructive sound they find they can leave themselves open to scrutiny, sometimes
it pays off in a huge way while other times they’ll end up with a unfathomable
mess that very few people will have the chance to appreciate. Joanna Gruesome
are one of those bands; if you listen to their debut album release ‘Weird
Sister’ you’ll see the almost schizophrenic mood swings from track to track,
bouncing from anger and isolation to upbeat and almost jovial and celebratory
pieces.
The track I'm reviewing here, ‘Sugarcrush’ presents this for
the listener sublimely, the highs and lows fluctuate throughout keeping the
listener engaged and show the truly remarkable talent these guys have for
producing something totally unique. The female vocals provide define the
direction of the music being played with the sweet and almost innocent sounding
tones providing a stark contrast of the heavy music backing and the lingering
depressive male vocals running alongside. Together they create one of the most
original pieces of music I've heard this
year and from a genre I’d had little to no experience with in the past.
As a standalone track it works wonderfully, everything
sounds so DIY and homemade which only adds the charm and evokes nostalgia while
simultaneously showing how music has changed and progressed over time; with
clear influences from both modern and more contemporary artists what’s created
is something wholly original, however when listened to as part of the album it
takes on a life of its own, think of it as a piece of a jigsaw, alone you can
appreciate its disjointed beauty while as a whole you enter into an extremely
layered and textured piece of work.
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