Joyce Manor - Cody

Joyce Manor have always thrived on immediacy. Their whole debut album was the length of some Explosions in the Sky songs, and their to-the-point, thrashing grubby rock has always done its best work inside a minute and a half.

‘Cody’ still runs for less than half an hour, but it’s less of a headrush than anything the band have produced before. ‘Do You Really Want To Get Better’, an acoustic calmer mid-album, doesn’t feel like it’s holding up an avalanche, as the down-tempo moments on 2012’s ‘Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired’ seemed to.

The album is the funniest Joyce Manor have ever been, largely through Barry Johnson’s frustration at merry-go-round conversations about the pros and cons of Kanye West, but it’s also the cleanest. When they breach the seemingly unattainable four-minute mark on ‘Stairs’, it’s done with grace and sky-high ambition, while ‘Make Me Dumb’ jangles like the best of ‘R.E.M.’.

Four full-lengths in, this is the most comprehensive full-length Joyce Manor have ever released. From a band who threatened to become one-dimensional after three albums of crashing their way through twenty minutes of intensity, ‘Cody’ sees Joyce Manor branching out and excelling every way they turn.