Pop-punk has certain stylistic rules about song structure and topicality that detractors often refer to as cliches, and it’s much easier to break these rules than to do something notable within them. The latter explains how Joyce Manor have grown to be one of the most popular and interesting bands in their realm: Yes, they’re from Torrance, California, and write 90-second, hook-filled songs called “Orange Julius” and “Leather Jacket.” They also take prog-like liberties with format and assume their subject matter is as fascinating as science fiction. They take pride in their given aesthetic, and the quartet’s third LP, Never Hungover Again, is a pop-punk cliché itself: the one where an ascendant, dearly beloved band signs to a big label, hires a hotshot producer and, oh shit, are those keyboards? The successes of Never Hungover Again are numerous, and the foremost is how Joyce Manor’s most ambitious and diverse album is just like their other ones—10 songs, 19 minutes, every second as weird as it is instantly enjoyable.
Assuming you’re approaching this record as a self-identifying “indie-rock” fan, there isn’t a single “legitimate” precedent that will walk you through this—maybe “west coast Lifetime” comes close, considering Barry Johnson’s perpetual slur, self-deprecation, and goofy earnestness. Joyce Manor are a stylistically comprehensive band and this record is a consolidation of their talents, accomplishing the difficult task of welding the straightforward charms of their increasingly canonical self-titled debut and the ambition of Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired, a record praised at the time for its relatively experimental leanings and in retrospect for having the fortune of being produced by “the Sunbather guy” (even though numerous Deafheaven songs are longer than the complete running time of Of All Things).
Of All Things’ “Bride of Usher” was typical of that record’s dilettantism, Joyce Manor playing a Smiths song by cribbing Johnny Marr’s leads and their rhythm section’s bounce; it felt as much of a cover as their actual take on the Buggles. The remarkable “Falling in Love Again” reverses and imagines if the Smiths wrote a Joyce Manor song—Tony Hoffer (Beck, M83, Air) adds a glycerine sheen to the slashing guitar chords and maxes Johnson’s vocals to a state of high school high drama; you can believe the title is being played straight or you can hear lines of Moz-like ambivalence (“Hope you don’t think that I care/’Cause I do I just don’t know if I should feel this bad about you”) as being par for Joyce Manor: Falling in love again is just the first step to the preferred resting state of falling out.
This is how Joyce Manor operates: In the past, beach communities, toothaches and model train sets were merely symbols and mirrors for Johnson’s infinite sadness. So while “End of the Summer,” “Heated Swimming Pool,” and “Heart Tattoo” are indicative of Joyce Manor’s suburban purview and are about the exact things they promise, Johnson’s subtle and powerful insight allows him to expose new angles and multitudes in the mundane. “The Jerk” is, yes, about being a jerk and also watching the titular movie and learning “that stuff don’t work." In both “Christmas Card” and “Heart Tattoo,” love can only be legitimized by pain—“I want it to hurt really bad/That’s how I’ll know it’s real.” Johnson’s lyrics are conversational, keg-side and half-pipe ruminations taking on a heft and layered meaning that likely escapes everyone involved until they’ve had a chance to mull them over alone: “Never really had a drug phase/So you think you’re fucking miserable now?,” “I always knew you'd join the army,” “I wish you would’ve died in high school/So you could be somebody’s idol.”
But if you want to hear Never Hungover Again as a summer record, Joyce Manor mask their depressive streak with chiming, fake 12-string riffs, mid-tempo jangle, group harmonies, and basically everything that can be crammed into pop-punk without turning it into plain ol’ “indie-rock.” Most bands working on a two-minute time limit tend to strip things down to the most rudimentary aspects and Joyce Manor can do that—the strict tense verse/explosive chorus template of “Victoria” is proof enough, though it’s an outlier that reflects how unconventional the band’s songwriting is throughout. The velocity of Never Hungover Again has an illusory effect where you can hear these songs as having been isolated from lengthier ones—the strange riff that bisects “Schley” sounds like it was excised from a long-winded solo, “Catalina Fight Song” is a 64-second perpetual crescendo that’s missing the expected, vestigial four-minute run-up, and “Falling in Love Again” churns tempestuously through near shoegaze synth ambience without ever hitting a predictable peak.
Upon first listen, the brevity of Never Hungover Again can sound less effective than, say, trying to hammer to home a chorus for the third time. But once you stop trying to label what should be a hook and focus on what is, the ingenuity of each song’s design and the ear-turning nature of every maneuver speaks to Never Hungover Again’s inexhaustible quality, the kind of album you can play three times in a row without any part wearing out its welcome.
Yet, the broad appeal of this record somehow makes it a more precarious sell than something that can be easily pegged; pop-punk literalists may reflexively hear the slick production as a betrayal and compliments such as “smart” or “crafty” as backhanded against its visceral, pleasure-seeking genre, similar to “conscious rap” or “intelligent dance music”. Meanwhile, it may be seen by indie fans as less substantial than Perfect Pussy, United Nations, White Lung, Cloud Nothings, and the Hotelier, who have revitalized their modes of punk in 2014 with heavy albums that nobody would call “fun.” Joyce Manor make punk music for the other 99% of waking life when you’re not functioning at peak intensity—for getting drunk, being bored, falling in love, feeling like shit, and wondering if your best days are behind you before heading out to a pool party you’re pretty stoked about. The optimal balance of maturity and immaturity is right there in the title, so throw on Never Hungover Again when you’re still looking to get into dumb shit, but you just want to be smarter about it.
