Petite League | Joyrider
By Dillon Schwartz, Riley McShane, and Justin Christopher Poulin Contributors
Dillon
Joyrider, Petite League’s fifth full-length, is the soundtrack for a post-apocalyptic beach party that I’m clearly very, very late to, but that I hope will never-ever end. Sometimes you just need some good vibes for the End Times, and Lorenzo and Henry are more than happy to provide. The fuzzy guitar work and light but crisp drum beats throughout Joyrider hypnotize you into trance-like focus on the clever and catchy pop-sensible lyrics delivered via Lorenzo’s chilled-out vocal style.
It’s a sort of baffling trick to pull, but especially on tracks like “Moon Dogs” and “Joyrider”, Schoonmaker and Cook’s backing instrumentation carries this up-beat high energy, hell almost sunny disposition. Meanwhile Cook’s lyrics are very rarely upbeat, the refrains “Well this life don’t want you ever coming back again” and “This might be our last summer” being emblematic of the record’s melancholy. But, then again, that’s just the bitterness that balances the sweeter moments on Joyrider, of which there are many. Cook’s vocal work on this sunnier side of the album has a kind of charming mania to it. Almost as if smiling through the words to you even though we both know it’s all doomed to end in tears. See the peaceful nostalgia and comfort in lines like this from the track “St. Michael”, “A little light in the heart of hell//Oh Saint Michel, oh Saint Michel//It reminds me of where I come from//Watching over me and my drunk friends”. Thing is, nostalgia and momentary reprieves are in constant struggle with the reckoning that always seems to be on the horizon for Petite League. I think that’s the dominant force on this album, blissful in the moment even with the knowledge that when the high wears off the hangover is going to be psychically shattering.
The surface joys of Joyrider all seem to be transient and in the past, nostalgia, remembrance of loves and lives we had long ago. But, the despair, the worry, the tragedy all seem to be certain and impending, like an anxious obsessives’ paranoiac self-authored horoscope. The real magic that Petite League pulls of in this beautifully balanced mix of manic joy and anxious dread of an album is that it just makes you feel fucking good, at peace, hell almost comforted by the idea of dancing and grooving to a band determined to play their way through the rapture. And maybe that’s just what they’ve done, so let’s all dance along.
Riley
My two-word review of Joyrider, which I’ll happily give to anyone within earshot: It. Rips. The new LP from the beloved Brooklyn outfit throws you in the backseat as it tears around corners with the abandon and glee that we’ve come to expect from Lorenzo Gillis Cook and company. There’s thrills to be had with “New Tricks” and “Dark Disco” but it’s the album’s softer moments that give it a particular staying power. Take for example the delicate interlude of “New Spring,” an idea we must all be longing for in the midst of this dark winter. There’s an elevated sense of control and confidence the band demonstrates on this, it’s fifth album in as many years. The engine is running hot, but the foot on the gas is not leaden - it knows when to let up and when to floor it. All the while, Cook’s voice reaches you as if it’s on the other end of a phone line - to say: get in stupid, we’re going driving.
Justin
I'll be honest; usually, if you were to put this kind of album on, my eyes would glaze over and I'd just let it wash the walls in the background. It's not that these albums-- or these sounds-- are particularly bad or anything, but they take me back to a time where you couldn't go to a show in Burlington without hearing a band that sounded REMARKABLY like Petite League. The fuzzed-out guitars, the sugar-coma melodies, the cocksure hooks, and the REVERB (THE REVERB!) take me back to 23, free, and full of ennui. It's a sound that has been worn to stub and explored to almost every angle.
Ok, but now that I've got all those equivocations out of the way-- this album is catchy as hell. Cook's vocals are charismatic, and the way they are layered just scream Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys. You're instantly transported to a warm shore in a world of circa 2014 Instagram filters. Plus, if you ever wanted to hear what Deerhunter might have sounded like if they started off as a jangly garage pop group, here it is. The production makes for a dreamily nostalgic and upbeat experience, and is well executed, that is, with the exception of the often atrophied drums on several tracks where it feels guitars and vocals push them far in the background.
For such a carefree sounding album, the subject matter is startlingly apocalyptic and resigned. "Moon Dogs," "St. Michael," "Greyhound," and the title track exist in these liminal spaces of "our last summer." In a way, these are swan songs to joyful innocence on the precipice of socio-political and ecological collapse, yet for Petite League, like another famous song for the end times, they feel fine.