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Graham Clark
Music Features Writer
@Maxximum23Clark
4:12 PM 4th September 2020
arts

Album Review: No Joy - Motherhood (Joyful Noise Recordings)

 
No Joy is basically front person and songwriter Jasamine White-Gluz who hails from Montreal.

The new album is No Joy’s first full length album in 5 years and requires a few listens for it to really click. There are a lot of influences in there from trip hop to trance with some disco grooves added too.

All of the tracks here are layered with sound over which you get White-Gluz’s dreamy vocals. If you want something commercial you will have to wait until the third track in, Nothing Will Hurt.

The trip hop influences come through on the song Four, if you imagine a brighter Massive Attack track you will get an idea of what to expect until the track develops into a nu-metal beast of a song. Like most of the songs here you never know what to expect and what is coming next.

Apparently White-Gluz had not read the Sheila Heti book Motherhood when she wrote the album. When she did she saw that there was narrative parallels between the two.

On the track Primal Curse she reads out an optimistic letter her mum wrote as a teenager to her future children, a delicate ballad it sounds like Suzanne Vega being dragged through the bushes backwards.

The album finishes with Kidder, sounding sparser than the other tracks it has that dark edge you tend to get with Depeche Mode as if mixed with Jesus and the Marychain.

It is not an easy listen, like Marmite you will either love or hate the album but if you persevere you will be rewarded with sonic soundscapes.

I give the album 3 out of 5