Review Summary: Joie De Vivre reintroduce the sound of coming of age to a new generation of distraught teenagers.
The rebirth of the sad, confessionary emo music of the nineties is a wonderful thing. After the demise of bands like Sunny Day Real Estate and Mineral, many were left yearning for a replacement. Nothing can quite compare to the confessionary, diary-style lyrics and perfectly imperfect sound of the Midwest emo genre. Thank god for the Count Your Lucky Stars record label, who have been doing their best to bring the feeling of content loneliness back to the consciousnesses of us all. Led astray by the ungenuine punk music of today, teenagers need albums that are pure and hopeful; albums that they can cherish as the holy book to all of their jumbled emotions. Needless to say, Joie De Vivre's The North End is one of these albums.
Depressing but ultimately hopeful, The North End could be seen as the epitome of Midwest emo music. Joie De Vivre's soaring, emotionally strained vocals may remind one of Mineral. Cracked and tone deaf but so honest and passionate, the lead singer's vocals and lyrics remind one of a simpler point of view, where the smaller things hold more significance and the larger things hold less. The North End has just the right balance of memorable, anthemic choruses and lonely, mellow verses. As for varied song structure, there is little. However, there is just enough differing of overall mood to please serious music listeners. The casual horns found throughout the album create a very mellow atmosphere, and whenever the guitars come in with distortion while the horns are playing, Joie De Vivre create a sound which is full of hope. This is in very good contrast with the overall depressing mood of the rest of the music. These brief feelings of hopefulness give the listener the idea that despite everything else that's going on, things will turn out just fine.
This is the sound of growing up, this is the sound of finding yourself. Everybody knows the feeling. This is the sound of waking up too late on a Sunday afternoon because you stayed up too late Saturday night because you didn't feel like needing to embrace the next day quite yet. This is the sound of not needing to do anything at all but to think about what you should be doing. And with that, I will leave you with a lyric.
You're so close to changing forever
And I'm too close to my family to notice
This year had better make me a new man
This liar could reach out and find me
I don't look up to enough local heroes
I still don't feel inspired enough to change
You leave me more than a martyr would ask for
With civil service and my conscience to blame
I'm sorry I made you lose focus
I didn't think you slept enough to dream
Of a never-ending need to follow
And a never-ending need to persuade me
