When you’re young and in love, every song about romance, whether successful or not, seems to strike a chord and it seems like those artists are singing directly at you. You begin to feel like they truly get you and your inner romantic, and often inevitable heartbreak. The same can be said with rebellion, and how lyrics about hating authority and wanting to set the world on fire resonate with your very soul, and ultimately end up shading your very being with their musical brush.
When you’re in your thirties and jaded with the world and everything just seems absolutely FUBAR, there’s been very few bands able to truly scratch that itch of expressing blunted expectations and self hatred. Then Spanish Love Songs came alone, and somehow it all made sense.
After making a small splash with their debut Giant Sing The Blues back in 2015 and the subsequent cannonball into the pool that was the incredible follow-up Schmaltz, the band emerged at a time when the malaise was really setting in for people of a certain age. The world is beginning to burn, dreams of living comfortably slip away like sand through the fingertips and an insidious political shroud creeps over the world. With a classic pop-punk instrumental backdrop, vocalist Dylan Slocum spun yarns about the constant fear of mass shootings, parental disappointment, drugs and the fear of an unlived life in a way that made you sit there and go “Well…shit” when listening.
Their last record, Brave Faces Everyone was more of an exploration of those around Dylan and the band, and his telling of others stories hit just as hard as those of his own. Yet throughout, the spark of hope remained, a single firefly against a pitch black sky.
“Seeks to break the hearts of those who've lost someone they've loved, but also to give hope to everyone feeling like they've reached the end.”
Now this new record, titled No Joy, is an album, like so many, was recorded and birthed into a post COVID world. The bands sound has evolved, and while some of the pop-punkiness remains, a more mature, almost indie-rock sound has taken over. Meredith Van Woert plays a vital part in this, her keys lending a new stripped back atmosphere to the tracks, starting right from the off with opener ‘Lifers’. It works too, as the more traditional chunky chords associated with pop punk would perhaps lend a strange juxtaposition to things.
As the title suggests, this isn’t going to be the bands upbeat effort. Far from it in fact, at times this album harbours some of the bands most introspective and, to be blunt, depressing lyrics. However, as Dylan states,“It’s an album about finding happiness in what you have and your current moment. It might be your best moment, or it might not, but you have to find joy in it.”
Some tracks, with first single ‘Haunted’ being a prime example, feature a musical backdrop that is reminiscent of Sams Town era The Killers yet lyrically it’s a lump-in-the-throat listen. The stand out line of “When you’re feeling like a ghost, would you come and haunt me please?” seeks to break the hearts of those who’ve lost someone they’ve loved, but also to give hope to everyone feeling like they’ve reached the end.
‘Middle of Nine’ stands out as potentially the best song the band have ever written. A slow, acoustic guitar intro gives way to a steady, 80’s inspired beat. The pace doesn’t pick up, yet that’s the point, as Dylan sings about his late Grandmother. To call this song beautiful is an understatement. “Where would we be if life wasn’t a chisel?” is a line that will send chills down the spine of many, a short yet piercing question that reminds us all that without the unnecessary pain and drudgery of life, we’d be very different people.
“Dylan is a man capable of turning even the jauntiest beat into three minutes of making you sit and stare into the void.”
One element of making an album that is always appreciated yet goes unnoticed a lot of the time, is track placement. After the slower ‘Middle of Nine’, latest single ‘Marvel’ kicks in with it’s claps and almost folky upbeat guitar. Not a song about a certain cinematic universe, the refrain of “Stay alive out of spite” feels like a call to arms, a line to throw your fist in the air and cast as your mantra.
‘Rapture Chaser’ rattles along with the jauntyness of a country banger, feeling like a good old fashioned anthem that will go down well live, while ‘Mutable’ features the venom soaked “There’s a kid with a trust fund asking me why I’m not famous. I wonder if I take his fucking skin if I can stay in my apartment” that can’t help but bring a wry smile to your face. As the album closer ‘Re-emerging signs of the Apocalypse’ hits you with a final blow of reminding you of the current state of the world and it’s conflicts, you may sink into your chair and stare into the sky in despair. But you’re not alone, you’re not the only one feeling like this, and amongst the bleakness, there is hope and there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
To say anything on this record is upbeat would be misleading, as Dylan is a man capable of turning even the jauntiest beat into three minutes of making you sit and stare into the void. Hyperbole be damned, the man is up there with Greg and Tom from The Menzingers for modern rock lyricists. His ability to weave songs of silk from experiences of shit is phenomenal and you have to think that if the band get the exposure that this album deserves, the man and his work will be rightly heralded as dystopian poetic masterstrokes.
As with their previous work, at times your enjoyment of the record will depend on your mental state. It may get too much, some of the apocryphal lyrics may cut that little bit too close to the bone. It isn’t an easy listen, nor is it really something you’d put on the aux on a roadtrip, lest the car pull over and questions about you being okay start to come out. At times, it can also feel a little one note on a musical level, as though the production is crisp and clean, there’s a tendency for some tracks to blur together. Due to the way he sings, and the subject matter, it can often feel like Dylan uses similar melodies at times too.
None of this detracts from an album that shows incredible musical growth, however. The band have shown that they have the maturation to their sound that will take them out of the pop-punk field and hopefully to bigger audiences.