Wait To Pleasure

If you adhere to the strict definition of the term, you really shouldn’t call it shoegaze if you can dance to it. This is a problem you run into when categorizing the most recent effort by No Joy. While the Montreal band formed by Jasamine White-Glutz and Laura Lloyd had its feet firmly plastered onto its reverb pedals on 2010 debut Ghost Blonde, new album Wait To Pleasure is far more agile and aggressive. Make no mistake: No Joy retains the bathyspheric vibe it established on Ghost Blonde, if only by virtue of its distant-sounding vocals, which rarely interrupt the mysterious vibe with an enunciated word. What’s different here is an avowed guitar crunch and blasts of white noise that at times make No Joy resemble a ragtag version of the Raveonettes. It’s just as easy to spot similarities to Lush’s shimmying pop (“Wrack Attack”), the Breeders’ bass-heavy rumbles (“E”), or the Kills mucking about with the Cure’s “A Forest” (“Blue Neck Riviera”). While these are somewhat expected influences and sounds, “Lunar Phobia” serves up a mid-album surprise, as a shaggy Madchester beat bubbles alongside some shamelessly catchy synth-pop tricks. It may be time to retire the band name as… read more »