Montreals No Joy spent the first decade of their existence slowly expanding their doomy shoegaze template with increasingly adventurous production and songwriting. Theyd grown from reverb-masked, guitar-heavy dream pop to the headphone-listening masterpiece that was their third album, 2015s More Faithful. Several EPs released in the years between More Faithful and proper follow-up Motherhood hinted at even deeper experimentation (moments of sludge metal peeked through on 2017s Creep EP and a 2018 collaboration with Sonic Boom was fully electronic), but nothing set the scene for the beautifully bizarre clashes that make up Motherhood. From one song to the next, No Joys vocalist/songwriter/producer/central member Jasamine White-Gluz dips into everything from trip-hop grooves to metalcore screaming without ever abandoning the atmospheric dreaminess that has defined the project from the beginning. Opening track Birthmark wastes no time introducing the new approach of the album, with a distinctively 90s electro-pop feel made up of huge sampled drums and bouncy synth bass. White-Gluz had stated shed returned to bands she listened to in her youth when crafting Motherhood, and the influence of No Doubt, the Sneaker Pimps, and some of the more danceable Brit-pop bands of the 90s shows up on songs like Nothing Will Hurt and Four. Quick shifts are also a key component of the album. Dream Rats is a shoegaze take on metalcore, with airy vocals meeting blastbeats and growling backup screams. On most songs, a mishmash of incongruent sounds that shouldnt work together end up sounding surprisingly coherent and interesting. This could be the metallic chaos that begins Four opening up to a mellow hip-hop groove complete with slap bass and slowed-down vocal samples or the vocoded singing and haunted piano hooks of Ageless. White-Gluz branches out fearlessly in all directions on Motherhood but never loses the plot. For all its conflicting layers, the album is meticulously crafted and thoroughly enjoyable. In the hands of a lesser talent, this level of genre-hopping and references to nostalgic sounds could be distracting or overwhelming. White-Gluz controls her songs with a steady hand and a crystalline vision on Motherhood, and takes No Joys always-restless creative spark to unimaginable new places. ~ Fred Thomas

Rovi