Joyce Manor: I Used to Go to This Bar

"Almost a decade and a half after they took basements and Tumblrs across America by storm with a raucous, self-flagellating singalong about avoiding your crush at a party, Joyce Manor have continued to mine everyday indignities for pop-punk gold. They've evaded the corniness and juvenility that have soured later-career records from some of their biggest inspirations. Instead, the Los Angeles band's seventh album falls more in line with DIY lifers like PUP, Jeff Rosenstock, the Menzingers, and Los Campesinos!"

"As the title suggests, I Used to Go to This Bar is made up of songs about feeling things you thought you were too old to feel and coping by doing shit you're probably too old to do-sleeping well into the afternoon, getting too drunk or too stoned (at times it feels like the album could be called Hungover Again). Since their 2011 debut, Joyce Manor have strayed little from the formula that's made them one of the most consistent contemporary punk bands, filtering depths-of-despair angst"

Joyce Manor's seventh album centers on feeling emotions supposedly reserved for youth and coping through habits that feel age-inappropriate, like sleeping late, heavy drinking, and getting stoned. The band continues a concise pop-punk formula of sticky guitar melodies and fist-pumping rhythms that can incite mosh pits and tug emotional heartstrings in songs under two and a half minutes. The record aligns with DIY peers who use gruff, rowdy pop-punk to interrogate the genre's immaturity and wrestle with the tension between outgrowing the scene and feeling like too much of a screw-up for anywhere else.

Read at Pitchfork