A reminder of how much fun indie can be, a mission statement from a trio of Black women in a world with a lot of white boys with guitars, and a clear contender for 2022's best album, Back Home is out tomorrow. Big Joanie are finally bringing their deservedly-hyped sound to these shores thanks to this release on Kill Rock Stars. The album sounds like it belongs on this esteemed label, even as so much of the record surprises and up-ends, simply and directly, the conventions of DIY indie-rock.
Estella Adeyeri (bass, guitar, backing vocals), Chardine Taylor-Stone (drums, backing vocals), and Stephanie Phillips (guitar, synth, omnichord, organ, vocals) formed Big Joanie in 2013 in London, and here in 2022, in a sign that their chosen genre's still got some new pleasures left in it, Back from Home delights. The players manage to take relatively straightforward material, like "In My Arms", and make it pop and pulse with a verve we've not heard from any trio in ages. The proto-surf rock rhythms and riffs here sit nicely next to the Breeders-ish buzz of "Taut". And while there are small pieces of these compositions that make a listener recall indie from past years, the trio so thoroughly own this style they're playing that the whole thing feels incredibly new and fresh. "What are You Waiting For?" has a slight riot grrl vibe to it, while the sinewy "Your Words" is more hypnotic still. Stephanie's vocals yearn over the shimmering guitar-lines of Estella, as Chardine's drums keep this moving forward with real propulsive power.
And yet Back Home contains more nuanced emotions. "Count to 10" is keyboard-based, and full of a kind of bedsit pop that feels a bit like Young Marble Giants, even as "Sainted" veers decidedly hard into synth-pop. Still, what's best on Back Home are the numbers that update the post-punk template to encompass a winning way with both riffs, hooks, and rhythmic bounce, like "Cactus Tree" and its layered, forceful heft, and "Today", a near-anthem with chiming guitars and martial beats. This is all catchy, and lots of these tunes are stuck in the head on first listen.
Back Home is the first album in a very time where I felt like I wanted to play the record again immediately after my first listen. It's so deceptively simple, yet so cleverly complex, that the music here consistently surprises. There's bits here that feel like the best indie from both sides of the Atlantic, but so much that feels like we're hearing musicians who finally found a way to make this stuff all sound new again. Big Joanie deserve all the praise this record's going to generate, and one can only hope that they make more albums with this much pep and heart in the future.
Back Home by Big Joanie is out tomorrow via Kill Rock Stars.
[Photo: Ajamu X]