Joywave

Cleanse is Joywave’s fourth studio album and is the follow-up to 2020’s Possession which released on March 13th 2020 as the world shut down. With a virus ravaging the world and no possibility of touring for the foreseeable future, Joywave frontman Daniel Armbruster was once again able to dig into his own psyche and see what surfaced. The 10 tracks that make up Cleanse were conceived, written and recorded in Armbruster’s home studio when “reminders of our fragile mortality were everywhere, punctuated by the ongoing pandemic and civil unrest,” he notes.   “Cleanse became the words, encouragement, and occasional cautions that I would want to share with you if this was the last time we spoke,” Armbruster reflects. Highlights on the album include the catchy and clever “Buy American, “ the introspective “After Coffee” which celebrates the pleasures of the mundane, the ambient groove of “Pray For The Reboot,” the brooding and expansive “The Inversion” and “Every Window Is A Mirror” which according to Armbruster recalls “our inability to understand the experiences of others.”

THE INSIDE TRACK

“This is the first time since Joywave has been a known entity that I can remember no one explicitly asking me to make a record. Our third LP, “Possession”, came out March 13th 2020, and the world stopped just a few days later. Our whole album cycle was dead on arrival. We had spent close to 18 months making and setting up that record. It was crushing to watch everything we had worked so hard to roll out in just the right way obliterated in an instant.

But creatively, the timing couldn’t have been better. Something more positive began to emerge. With our dense touring schedule shelved, I was able to reflect on past travels and appreciate them in a new way. But reminders of our fragile mortality were everywhere, punctuated by the ongoing pandemic and civil unrest. The music began to encompass all of this. It became the words, encouragement, and occasional cautions that I would want to share with you if this was the last time we spoke. And with all this time spent looking inward came the realization that there were still a few chips I was carrying on my shoulder that I needed to let go of. Maybe you have those too.

One of my first jobs ever was at a car wash. I thought of the band, after years spent on the road taking a breather. Going through that wash process. Watching all the dirt and mud stripped away. Coming out the other side refreshed and rejuvenated. Still having experienced everything from before, but no longer wearing the scars. Welcome to Cleanse – Daniel Armbruster

HUNNY was born out of the tight-knit North LA indie-rock scene of the mid-2010s, sharing stages and even band members with acts like The Neighbourhood and Bad Suns from an early age. On the back of a shimmering blend of new-wave sheen, shoegaze gloom and angular guitar rock – all underwritten with cheeky, California cool sensibilities – the childhood friends racked up millions of streams of their self-released 2015 EP, Pain/ Ache/ Loving, thanks to undeniable songs like the hit “Cry For Me.”

By the time the band had secured a record deal with legendary Epitaph Records and released their 2019 debut full-length, Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes., outlets like Alternative Press were hailing HUNNY – vocalist/guitarist Jason Yarger, guitarist Jake Goldstein, bassist Kevin Grimmett and drummer Joey Anderson – for their spin on “perfunctory electronic and new-wave pop, teeming with love, heartbreak, neuroses and impeccably sweet dancing shoes.”

“There was a production sheen to the album that was very cool,” Goldstein says proudly of Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes., which was produced by GRAMMY-winner Carlos de la Garza (Paramore, Best Coast) and launched HUNNY onto global tours with the likes of State Champs, Citizen and The Story So Far. “We got to record drums at Sunset Sound and all this epic rock stuff. That was sick, but I think we missed what made the early days special and wanted to take it back to the core of the band.”

The wide-eyed excitement and energy of those early years are all over HUNNY’S NEW PLANET HEAVEN, the group’s second LP for Epitaph that finds them tightening their social circle and distilling their art down to its purest form yet. While the pandemic kept the band apart physically, they were closer than ever on an artistic level, writing and demoing nearly 100 ideas for LP2 that eventually made their way to longtime friend and collaborator Derek Ted.

“We wanted to really workshop lyrics and melodies in a campfire-style setting and see how the songs would come out of that,” Goldstein explains. “Despite having been apart and writing on our own, we were finding a lot of common threads in what we were bringing to the table. We can’t escape that we’re in a band together and have similar tastes. We took a step back and looked at all the songs from a distance, then took the ones that felt like they really belonged together.”

Decamping to Ted’s LA studio (dubbed New Planet Heaven, begetting the album’s title), the band began to woodshed the record’s eventual dozen songs, focusing less on perfection and more on recapturing the unbreakable bond that colored early bedroom demos. (Listen closely, and you can even hear Yarger’s dog’s collar provide auxiliary percussion on the album-closing “palm reader,” a happy accident that’s ultimately emblematic of the leniency the band extended themselves throughout the process.)

The sense of comfort and nostalgia is there from the first single “action –> reaction,” in its transistor radio intro and undeniable vibrancy, its reclamation of youth and reverence for HUNNY’s hungrier, scrappier days. As Goldstein says: “There’s a sense of distance but also warmth to all our favorite songs, and that’s an element we wanted to bring to the album: a longing for a missed opportunity or chance or youth or what the past might have given you.”

Chasing 2022’s stopgap Homesick EP and mixed by former HUNNY guitarist Jacob Munk (5 Seconds Of Summer, Caroline Polachek, Miley Cyrus), HUNNY’S NEW PLANET HEAVEN finds the band playing in a brand-new musical sandbox, balancing the haze of hindsight with a sun-soaked SoCal summer. From the meditative “my own age” and breakbeat-backed, late ’90s-leaning “all my luck” to the lo-fi punk standout “ring in your ear” (featuring Motion City Soundtrack’s Justin Pierre) and made-for-dashboard-drumming “89cc” (complete with a searing sax solo) the album is a testament to the band’s musical fluency and dedication to their craft.

“We love genre play and pastiche,” the guitarist explains, “the idea of a record that sounds like changing the channels on a TV – distinct but still able to be enjoyed as a whole.”

Now, on the verge of entering their second decade together, it’s clear HUNNY’s greatest asset is their disinterest in doing anything besides what moves them. It’s afforded them great range as a band, the ability to naturally shapeshift on their own albums as well as win over audiences across the entire rock spectrum. Most importantly, it’s propelled them to be unapologetically themselves and trust what’s gotten them this far.

“We’re really trying to be less precious about what makes it out into the world,” Goldstein says. “We want to get out of our own way and release as many things as possible. Brett [Gurewitz, Epitaph founder] always says it’s the best way for us to be operating: ‘Keep putting stuff out, because you never know what’s going to work. If you’re inspired to create, create.’ Ultimately, that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do – oh, and be the biggest band in the world.” XX