Album: Wolf’s Law
Artist: The Joy Formidable
(Atlantic)
Three stars out of five
The Joy Formidable is one of a handful of newer guitar-centric bands — and one of even fewer fronted by a woman. (Is this really 2013? Weren’t there more girls with guitars in the ‘90s? I know rock isn’t ruling today’s charts, but still … ) As a singer, Ritzy Bryan’s Welsh-accented vocals are soft and girlish. As a guitarist, her riffs are thick, fuzzy and stormy — sort of like Led Zeppelin mixed with shoegazer rock — earning the enthusiastic approval of Dave Grohl and Mark Hoppus. Yet this contrast isn’t played up enough on The Joy Formidable’s second album, Wolf’s Law, leading to a disappointing wash of sonic sameness. Forest Serenade, for example, features strings you can barely hear, while the refreshing plinks of a piano on The Leopard and The Lung all but disappear in a blitz of guitars and percussion. Only three of the album’s 12 songs stick their noses out of the soup — The Turnaround, a cinematic string ballad which leads to a hidden track, Wolf’s Law, a smouldering piano ditty; and Maw Maw Song, with its delicate Asian-flavoured chimes. It could be the best track on the album, but it’s marred — or mawwed? — by what sounds like a pack of sarcastic teens (or Wayne and Garth) pretending to sing along to the Asian-flavoured riffs. In concert, I’m sure the trio’s trademark ferocity brings the layers of these new songs into sharper relief — The Joy Formidable is consistently one of the stars of Edmonton’s Sonic Boom festival — but as a collection of recorded tunes, Wolf’s Law lacks the urgency and bite of the band’s 2011 hit, Whirring from The Big Roar.
– Sandra Sperounes, Edmonton Journal
