Jen Goma has been American indie pop’s best kept secret for almost a decade now. Since being recruited into the cult shoegaze collective A Sunny Day in Glasgow in 2009, she has sung with acts such as the Pains of Being Pure at Heart (she featured on a cover of James’ “Laid” on the band’s last EP, and has joined them as a touring member), People Get Ready, and Roman à Clef, a revivalist sophistipop trio with her Sunny Day bandmate Ryan Newmyer and ex-Pains member (and Ice Choir frontman) Kurt Feldman. Her presence has always added a welcome flair to whichever project she joins, and although she has proven herself to be a master collaborator, it seems surprising that she is only now releasing her first solo venture. Under the name Showtime Goma, the Brooklyn musician has snuck signatures from all the bands she’s been a part of over the years into Smiley Face, an album of unconventional pop brimming with potential.
Indie pop, as a genre, typically combines heartfelt earnestness with amateurish technique, as if the musicians involved just stumbled upon the concept of being in a band and decided to give it a go. One of the things that has always set Goma apart from many of her peers is her serious chops—her powerhouse vocals can’t help but be the main attraction in whatever project she finds herself in. She’s much more pop than indie, singing with the kind of crystal-clear focus that you just don’t hear often enough in her line of work. This undeniable charm is what makes Smiley Face both a wildly enjoyable and a slightly frustrating listen. The songs are full of hooks and well constructed, and the album’s DIY take on sun-drenched dream pop suits Goma’s persona perfectly. But the album is packed with so many ideas that Goma herself runs the risk of getting lost in the fray.
This is immediately apparent on the album opener, “Oh Shit”; it's catchy, and it flawlessly showcases Goma’s range from high-pitched belt to throaty snarl, but it has so many starts and stops, and pivots and turns, that you’re left wishing for a good, clean, singalong chorus to sink your teeth into. Not that Showtime Goma should aspire to Top 40 polish—it’s abundantly clear that she seeks to explore the side of pop that privileges sincerity over artifice. But sometimes a little editing goes a long way, and the emotion in a track like “Oh Shit” would be all the more powerful if things were a little more pruned.
That’s not to say that Smiley Face doesn't ultimately benefit from Goma’s ambitious songwriting and ear for experimental production. When the album does successfully harness its erratic energy, the result is lushly layered songs that twinkle with glossy synths and big, sing-along melodies. Lead single “Big Disaster” finds the perfect balance between Goma’s natural pop delivery and the left-of-center vibe the album embodies. Opening with a shimmery guitar riff that could have been lifted from a Katy Perry track circa Teenage Dream, and accompanying that with a fuzzy breakbeat, the track makes striking use of Goma’s clever skills as a lyricist: When she sings, “Wear a sexy mask/Disguise is a beauty too/I feel like a man/Like a proper dude,” she smarly draws a line between gendered concepts like feminine enigma and masculine posturing at the same time as she underlines the song’s tonal duality.
Almost every track on Smiley Face was written with Greg Saunier, the Deerhoof drummer and experimental pop composer, and his fingerprints are all over the record, especially on tracks like “Come and Know Me Better Man,” which rides a demented, not un-Deerhoof-like organ loop and shuffling, funky percussion. In the end, Goma’s collaborative instincts help her to bring it all home. One of Smiley Face's most effective songs is “How R U?”, made with her Sunny Day bandmates Newmyer and Ben Daniels. It’s the big, euphoric payoff that lifts the album into the stratosphere: a bubbling odyssey with a chorus reminiscent of Chairlift at their most joyous, or Carly Rae Jepsen on a subdued comedown. Less than three minutes long, it’s short and sweet, but it encompasses everything that makes Goma such a unique voice in contemporary indie. Smiley Face is a solid effort at finally establishing an artist that has been flying under the radar for way too long. After paying some serious dues, Jen Goma is ready to put her talents front and center. In a word, it’s showtime.
