The real triumph of Bodies of Water is the way in which Joyride! are able to marry their infectious hooks and DIY punk energy with lyrics that have an honest tenderness, more akin to something you’d expect from a bedroom pop act than a rock band. There are awkward tales of young love and anxious innocent yearning. Listening to the lyrics feels like reading the poetic scrawls in the margins of Marx’s diary. With lines such as:

“you’ve got a big heart but they say it doesn’t work well. i’m not that surprised” on ‘earthquake’, and:

“We might not say much but we still like to talk”, on ‘small talk’.

My current favourite track is ‘all the experts say’, which is all fuzzy distorted guitars as Marx sings sweetly of past hopes and current compromises. Then, in the last third, drums kick in and Marx delivers the repeated refrain of, “how to sit still, how to stand straight, how to move on from a southern state.”

Bodies of Water is out now on cassette via Lauren Records, order it here. It is also being released on vinyl by Salinas Records. The release date is the 18th of September and you can pre-order it here. Finally, you can also download it for as much as you’d like via the Joyride! Bandcamp page.

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