Joanna Gruesome – Peanut Butter
- Written by Adam Deuchars
In days gone by the popular perception was that noise pop was something that only came out of North America. Our transatlantic cousins could crank it up to 11 and kick out the jams without any obvious concern for midlife tinnitus. In contrast back in Blighty there was much fumbling, much mumbling and lots of polite jangly shuffling. Nothing wrong with that of course and such an approach unearthed some truly sparking musical gems. Up against Uncle Sam’s boys and girls, however, it all looked a bit pre-pubescent, pale and only occasionally interesting. In short it lacked genitals.
Joanna Gruesome, reportedly formed off the back of an anger management course, buck this trend and then some. The five piece from Cardiff make a superb racket and this is confirmed on their second full album release Peanut Butter. The Joanna Gruesome sound is abrasive, trebly, flat out and full of more hooks than a fisherman’s tackle box. Delicious fuzzy waves of noise meet perfectly formed pop pearls throughout this record. Not that it is easy listening by any stretch of the imagination as it sticks its elbows into your ribs when it can and loosens up the ear wax with its high end snaking hiss. Peanut Butter has fists full of feist and knows how to use them.
The opener to Peanut Butter ‘Last Year’ is a great first insight to Joanna Gruesome. A squeal of feedback, then a thundering roll of noise giving way to sumptuous harmonies making it a dirty pop treat. It is a sweet, short, sharp, shock which gets the dopamine flowing. The brevity of the songs is important to mention here. Most of them clock in at around two minutes so if, by some odd freak of nature, you are not keen on a tune another is around the corner quick smart. The whole album fires on through in well under half an hour. The Ghost of John Peel will be giving this a major thumbs up. The next highlight is the fabulous ‘Honestly Do Yr Worst’. Sharp chord changes and thumping beats are topped with a dreamy vocal. It shifts and switches but never fails to engage the listener in a dazzling two minute pop blast. ‘Crayon’ weighs in at a hefty three minutes but in no way is leaden. More woozy than the other tracks it feels a little like a mini My Bloody Valentine track - how could that be a bad thing?
The buried boy-girl vocals throughout the album differentiate it from the noise pop norm and give the sound an intriguing duality. The flipside of this is that it is nigh impossible to work out quite what is being sung about. The vocals are bobbing about on the rough sea of sound and ended up continually submerged. If you are here for the lyrics then don’t bother frankly. It would be hard to say that it stops you liking a tune like ‘I Don’t Wanna Relax’ with its shiny grunge guitar lines or the superb ‘Psykick Espionage’. Incomprehensible shouting submits to pop twists and turns before being consumed by the whirlwind of sound and fury, only to relent again. It doesn’t half keep you on your toes this record. ‘Hey! I Wanna Be Yr Best Friend’ closes the album and is a slower, more considered piece. It seems in contrast to the rest of the record and has a subtle, restrained feel which gives way to a beautiful flurry of guitar which could be straight off a Christmas album. Joanna Gruesome with a Christmas number one would be quite something.
Peanut Butter is a moreish treat. Noisy and sharp at every turn this would be a great record to annoy your parents with however old they and you might be. It would be hard to argue it is a record that shifts the musical landscape in any sense. And at the same time there is no sense that is set out to be anything than it is; a spunky set of catchy tunes played loudly. It proves beyond doubt that the UK can do noise pop with style and guile. Joanna Gruesome are in no way short on genitals and Peanut Butter shows that to the full.