Aidon Huck
This was posted to Instagram as an initial reaction to the song Brain Damage by Joywave, the lead single from their fifth album Permanent Pleasure.
So this is definitely a weird single. Kind of continuing the direction of Cyn City 2000 and Why Would You Want To Be Young Again and also The Carousel? Even though it's not a Joywave song technically. There are a lot of things that are distinctly Joywave in this song, but also things that could only exist in the current era of Joywave.
The main musical element that makes this definitely a Joywave song is Daniel Armbruster's signature use of chromaticism in the instrumental. In tis song they use it pretty heavily on the chorus/drop and on past songs like Content and F.E.A.R. It's just a thing I've noticed they like to do.
As for the things that make me feel like this could only exist in the current day Joywave is the production. Daniel Armbruster is a great producer and props to him for using a bunch of sounds that I've never heard before and mixing them with real strings and brass. It's a combination that is strange but is a unique vibe. I will say though that from a songwriting perspective, the new era of Joywave that they declared on Cleanse seems to be mostly production focused.
In the past my faborite songs were the ones with more traditional rock band instrumentation, i.e. ones where you could hear that there was a guitar player. The credits tell me that Joey is on this song, but I couldn't tell you where his part is. (Interestingly, the credits also tell me that he is on alto?) I miss his parts. Joywave guitar parts aren't always obviously complex, but they're always beautifully melodic and feel like they could only be Joywave guitar parts in a way. Paul the drummer is obviously on this song, but I've always gotten the impression that he didn't have a lot of songwriting ambition and is mostly content to be the drummer in a cool band, which I respect.
The other two current members of (miss you Ben) are listed as writers, and I can't say that they didn't do anything because I don't know, but this feels like a Daniel Armbruster song. To be clear, that's not a bad thing. I love Daniel Armbruster with my whole heart. I just have a lot of thoughts as a devoted fan and it will be interesting to see the direction of the (I'm assuming) album. Based on this single it's looking like Cleanse 2.