Shit, I just did a big State Of The Genre Address concerning IDM in my Ninajirachi review, didn’t I? I was kinda planning to do a similar takedown to fucking Shoegaze in this review, but now I worry about repeating myself. Because I am an artist who is constantly re-evaluating my craft. If I was putting the Necessary Evil countdown into the Necessary Evil countdown it would come out on top every fucking year. This list is basically my annual check of my artistic competition, and I always find them lacking. But I nonetheless appreciate their efforts.
OK, quick Shoegaze squash: “Euuuuugh! I’m going to overlay this with so many washed out guitars that you can’t hear how mid the song is! Whaaa! I’m going to have the vocals so low in the mix that my garbage lyrics are impossible to consider! Nerrrr! I’m going to strip this song of all personality and this band is going to be an absolute charisma vacuum in order to somehow convince people we’re more legitimate!”
Yeah, that was basically it. No, don’t worry, I’d be able to stretch that out for 1000 words or so.
No Joy though, aye? Aye? I certainly got a lot of joy from this album!!
There’s a bit of music journalism for you.
Jasamine White-Gluz, Garland Hastings and Michael Farsky – which are all wonderful names by the way – have actually been going for fucking ages. Their first show as No Joy was way back in 2009, which you imagined they all performed while wearing low rise, bootcut jeans and played music that was heavily influenced by Bad Romance. They made their debut on December 15th that year, which is the same day that – get this! – Israel reacted angrily to the issuing by a British court of an arrest warrant for the former Israeli Foreign Minister for war crimes committed in Gaza!! The world was so different back then: Israel being punished for war crimes committed in Gaza? Very of it’s time. ‘Bugland’ is also No Joy’s fifth album, so I am waaaaaay behind on this one! However, it’s their first since 2020, so I appreciate them slowing down a bit to let the rest of the class catch up.
It’s also an absolute blast. A veritable hand grenade of colour, noise, invention and craft. Another irking aspect of Shoegaze – and a lot of guitar music outside of the mainstream in whatever nonsense genre people want to to term it – is that it often leans into lo-fi or near non-existent production, usually as a attempt at ‘legitimacy’. In the past, sure, your band hasn’t got two dicks to piss together and you’re recording the album in the cellar of your Mum’s mate Val, so the songs are always going to sound like a potato being waterboarded. But in 2025?? Mate, I could record an album as lush sounding as ‘Fulfillingness’ First Finale‘ on my fucking Android phone, miss me with that fake crapness please!
I didn’t say it’d be better than ;Fulfillingness’ First Finale… but… Yeah, probably would.
‘Bugland’ though?? No such weaponised incompetence here! It’s an absolutely lush sounding record, where each element of each song is battling to be the loudest but still somehow allowing every other component breathe. There were few better sounding records released in 2025, and No Joy (Aye? Aye? I certainly got a lot of joy from this album!! #Journalism) marry this simultaneously retro yet strangely futuristic and overworldly wall of sound to the most important thing of all: songs that are actual bangers.
Yeah?
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So what I’m saying is I certainly got a lot of joy from this album!!!!!!!!!!!!
Respectable, I guess, though the streets are saying it’s only a 73
True…
Necessary Evil 