Joywave
"How Do You Feel Now?"
Hollywood Records
In the run up to "How Do You Feel Now?" — the debut full-length album from Rochester's Joywave — the band developed its sound with a pair of genre-busting mixtapes and various other releases both physical and digital. Deftly mixing styles and ambition, "How Do You Feel Now?" continues in the tradition of melding pop and rock elements into a singular highly glossed product. Each track has a dance bent — it's easy to imagine a coordinated mover capably handling the floor in step. With heavier elements employed more often than on prior works, the band has embraced its rock roots while also embellishing pop elements to appeal to a broader audience.
A force on the local scene in recent years, Joywave's talent has led to bigger and better things on a broader stage. The band continues to embrace local affiliations, utilizing harpist Mikaela Davis on a stunning movement between the anthemic "Nice House" and operatic "Bad Dreams" at the close of the record. And "Tongues," the biggest hit the band has experienced so far, features local electro-pop outfit and frequent collaborators KOPPS.
Transitions between each track, capable of standing on their own as both dance-floor hits and radio staples, serve as glue to tie each track in. As a whole, there is a definite sense of completeness to these 11 tracks. The album as it has been known may be going extinct, but the form is enlivened by affairs such as this.
