Scared Rant

Okay so there's a new Joywave single so I'm bringing out the blue background again. 

Without exaggeration this is the best single they've released since After Coffee, the lead single from their last album. I would actually include all of the singles from Best Frenz in that as well. I Reeeeaaally like this one. 

I know it's impossible, but it feels like the band listened to all of the very specific things that I felt were lacking about Brain Damage and cooked this one up just for me. I said I wanted guitar? This song is almost exclusively guitar. I said Brain Damage felt very producer-y? This feels like it was written by a band. 

I said the song felt like it could only exist in present-era Joywave? Well... that one is still true. If this song is a victim of anything it is a victim of the rappidly falling runtime that Joywave songs have been experiencing since Cleanse, and actually Possession to an extent. Clocking in at 2:33, it's the shortest non-interlude track they've ever released, which is a shame. While in some respects I admire it for its dynamic variety within the short runtime it's just begging for a guitar solo, right? It wants to live for just a little longer. It's a fleeting blast of emotion and power and the more I think about it the more I find that tragic. 

Texturally this song gives Joey all the freedom he needs to create the lush guitar textures that I have been begging for. The guitar tones on this song come straight from my dreams and they're layered so deeply that I don't think they could physically bring enough people on tour to do it justice live. I cannot accurately put into words how the guitars make me feel on the last chorus of the song. It's like magic to me. 

Lyrically this is really doing it for me as well. Rather than the existential societal woes that frequented Cleanse and were the subject of Brain Damage, Scared is incredibly personal. However blunt it may be, to me this is one of their most emotionally devastating choruses they've ever written. Something about it is hitting a very specific part of my brain that I wasn't even sure was there honestly. 

The sound of this song even makes Brain Damage play better by association. According to the tracklist they'll be back to back with Scared coming first, and I think the proximity of a guitar heavy song makes Brain Damage both more inventive and more at home. For those of you who read my last Joywave rant or talked to me in person you may have picked up on my hesitation to fully enjoy Brain Damage and the album that may be attached to it. Those hesitations are gone and I have not been this excited for an album in a long time. The cover art is beautiful as well. 

Finally I just wanted to mention that this song follows the frequent Joywave quirk of playing only the IV and V chords on a repeating cycle for the entire song. This is a thing they've been doing forever and it's so funny that they did it agaon. They did it on Shutdown, they did it on After Coffee, Best Frenz did it on Flatline, and now they've done it on Scared. I'm sure there are probably more but these are the only ones I've checked. It gives me confidence that no matter what happens, Joywave will always be Joywave. 

Thanks for reading if you read it. 

Go listen to Scared by Joywave.