Piss In The Wind

The ballad aficionado behind the 2022 viral hit "Glimpse of Us," Japanese-Australian singer-songwriter Joji has now graced us with a glimpse of greatness.Don't let Piss in the Wind's 21-track run fool you: Joji uses the expansive tracklist as a playground to toy with potential, packaged in cute, barely two-minute eruptions that flirt with the listener without ever fully committing. The songs, therefore, come across as a collection of half-finished demos or interludes cosplaying as complete compositions.Theoretically, the advantage of an album this long is the freedom to experiment and branch out sonically. In practice, however, the constant shifts from indie rock to a techno create a sense of whiplash. "Tarmac," 4batz collaboration "Fade to Black" and "Silhouette Man" have pockets of promise, but when the best is seemingly yet to come, the song's over. Joji compiles and constructs all the bones perfectly for a great track, but they aren't fleshed out enough to feel truly satisfying.Piss in the Wind opens on a high note with the aggressive trap energy of "PIXELATED KISSES," setting an early sense of momentum. However, that pace rarely slows on Side A, leaving low-tempo tracks like "Past Won't Leave My Bed" and the Yeat-featuring "Rose Colored" without the space they need to fully land, drowned out by the surrounding noise. Joji covers a lot of surface area, but rarely with enough depth, resulting in great moments buried between average ones.Still, there are undeniable flashes of peak Joji scattered throughout the album, which only heightens the frustration. They serve as reminders of his ability to be great, confirming the unevenness as less of a lack of talent and more of an excess of underdeveloped ideas.Piss in the Wind had the makings of something special, but instead comes across as an unfinished collage without enough glue to bridge together the bursts of colour in the face of exorbitant blank space.