Album Review: Joystick- You're Letting All The Fun Out

Joystick

You're Letting All The Fun Out

*** out of *****

With the sky falling opener "Look Out Below" Joystick slams it's skacore sound in your ears, with dynamic changes, shoutalong choruses and punk abandon. You're Letting All The Fun Out is filled with songs like this, full of musical dexterity, tempo fluctuation, horn arraignments, blaring brass and powerful drums. 

"Bandwagon" calls out indie kids while the punk/hardcore cry of "Bury The Hatchet" cuts rough as production slams the cymbals and horns to the forefront. The bratty vocals of Paul "Duck" Tucker take their turn highlighting things on "Home By 9" and "Famous Last Words". The simple "Randy Savage is Dead" contains some glorious horn runs that would make ska bands in their heyday like The Mighty Mighty Bosstones jealous.

"March Sadness" has a killer bass line from Clay Aleman before Mickey Retzlaff's guitar fires to an ending. The three pronged horn attack of Trace Barfield (Trumpet), Josh Bourgeois (Trombone), Justin McDowell (Saxophone) lead the charge as the band hits a highpoint with the single sounding "I Wanna" managing to combine the best ska tendencies with the simple songwriting of The Ramones.

Tacking on a long band dynamics phone call to end things is a strange move to air internal politics, but coming on the heels of "Famous Last Words" it makes some sense, still not very listenable and all too familiar to any one ever in a band.    

Ska in general has been relegated to the sidelines in recent years, but albums like You're Letting All The Fun Out prove their is still fire in the horn/rock combo.
____________________________________________________________________
Yet another fun find this month as we focus on NOLA and use bandcamp to find lesser known acts. We are not a huge ska fan, but rarely hear it these days so it was refreshing in a sense.

Support the band here, buy the album here or below: