The Joy Formidable’s fourth studio album Aaarth is guitar-soaked and sprawling. It’ll be ready for ears through Hassle Records on September 28th, 2018.
Overall, this album is layered and spinning, a sound that takes over your space. You can almost see it expanding and filling all the cracks in the foundation. It takes you on a sonic journey as it takes you over. It forces you to connect with your surroundings with its collage of sounds that include eastern influences, graceful keys, heavier psych vibes and Ritzy Bryan’s voice that moves from loud and present, to ghostly and distant.
The Joy Formidable – The Wrong Side
Stand out track, The Wrong Side, pairs frenzied riffs with lyrics that touch on volatile times: “And the voices from the past/ they say the future will be kinder/ They’re living all our memories/ some of us need reminding” . The song, All In All, starts similar to a music box, softly introducing sound, then explodes into a harmonic haze.
The theme of nature flows throughout this album as if it’s calling us to remember we’re part of the ground. Dance Of The Lotus is an epic track with an enigmatic quality propped up by reverb and an ambiance inspired by dance beat. Bryan sings “Don’t wake up, oh I just need this time/ alone with the sky that forgives me silently.”
Aaarth is an album that emphasizes the need to recognize that mind, body, and collective spirit is forever tied with nature, and that’s all we can rely on.
