Review: Joyce ‘Voyce’
Joyce‘s Voyce has a lot going for it. First, there’s the band’s star-studded line-up featuring; ex-Olympic athlete/former Future Of The Left member Jimmy Watkins on vocals/guitars/ bass/keys/synths, Phil Thornalley (The Cure) on guitar, Joe Hicklin (Big Special) on bass/vocals, Gwenllian Anthony (Adwaith) on bass/vocals, Paul Broome (Fauxchisels) on vocals, RWB on beats/synths, Tommy Watkins talks, Allan Oakes on drums/tambourine and Thomas Egerton on vocals/bass/drums/gong/flight case.
Next there are the endorsements from legendary Red Dwarf actor/BBC6 Music presenter Craig Charles, talented character actor Michael Sheen and lastly, it is released by Human Worth who we at Shaman Towers are huge fans of, a label jam-packed with quality output and tireless fundraising for good causes. So, with all this in mind I’m unsurprisingly stoked about covering this, the band’s debut. Let’s get stuck in…
Contact is a spoken word piece with a devotional quality that seemingly is about encouraging love and harmony, something the world, I’m sure everyone will agree, is in urgent need of. Title track Voyce is a danceable and undeniably catchy electro-punk banger which, should the band ever play Glastonbury, will shake the audience out of its collective corporate spoon-fed stupor. No wonder it was released as a single and a video made for it, a superb number.
Mr Blue Sky (not a cover or take on the ELO classic, or is it?) is on a superficial level shimmery indie pop, however, dig a little deeper and you’ll find rumbling post-punk Joy Division/New Order basslines and vocals delivered with sarcastic glee, a cleverly constructed track and no mistake. My Luna is a wonderful slice of groovy retro-psych with a hypnotic vibe, think Kula Shaker but not shit. Deja Vu has an industrial/electro heart with both repetitive steady beats and dystopian vision in tow, think Pound Land but maybe not quite as bitter, meanwhile Poc Pon certainly has some interesting hip-hop flavours to recommend it. I mean it’s hardly on the level of Pharoahe Monch, but it’s pretty darn good nonetheless.
Gateway is an interlude featuring weird noises and spoken word that really serves as the album’s (approximate) halfway mark and Old Mold Road has a beat that recalls The Knack’s My Sharona showcasing a power-pop sensibility but one that is nowhere as lyrically inane. The aforementioned new-wave influences are again present as well as a darker goth and death-rock fare that come straight from the early ‘80s, right up my street in other words.
Bamboo is a brilliantly balanced track of two halves, the first has dreamy and ambient shoegaze vibe while the second is a little more abrasive in the noise-rock vein. The Heat appears to be a continuation of Bamboo with warm blissful ambient textures featured in the first half and tasty yet obnoxious art-punk ala Cassels dominating the latter.
Foreword By Michael Sheen which unsurprisingly features the man himself, reminds one of Killing Joke, especially the familiar hum at the beginning resembling Requiem and of course Jaz Coleman’s out-there apocalyptic mutterings. As a Killing Joke fan, this was always going to appeal. With a krautrock and post-rock core, Hum Hotline is undeniably the album’s magnum opus with an expansive sound that envelops everything in its path, a black hole yet not one you’d mind getting sucked into. Finally, Complete concludes proceedings with a child’s voice thanking us for listening before disappearing into the devotional ether in a manner which opened the record, thus bringing it full circle.
An album packed with musical variety and intelligence, it’s no wonder Voyce is making waves critically and from what I’ve now heard, deservedly so. Thanks Human Worth for another quality release.
Label: Human Worth
Band Links: Bandcamp | Spotify | Twitter | Instagram
Scribed by: Reza Mills
