Songs From Northern Torrance＜Opaque Yellow Vinyl＞

After the refined and wistful power pop of 2018s A Million Dollars to Kill Me, Joyce Manors Songs from Northern Torrance feels like an archaeological dig into the grimy punk basements of West Coast suburbia. A rarities compilation celebrating the California emo-punk bands formative years, this engaging ten-song curiosity is divided into two distinct sections of lo-fi charm. Named after an apartment complex near frontman Barry Johnsons home in the city of Torrance, the group was purportedly formed in 2008 following a drunken conversation between Johnson and fellow guitarist Chase Knobbe in the Disneyland parking lot. Revealed here in the first five songs, their early exploits as a mostly acoustic punk duo with occasional drums are surprisingly durable in spite of what are essentially field recordings and tape-recorded demos. Pre-dating the more conventional pop-punk route they would later take as a full band, the immediacy of songs like House Warning Party and DFHP in their original stripped-down format affirm the innate melodicism Johnson would carry throughout the bands career, but hints at the rawer direction Joyce Manor might have taken. Songs six through ten (or side two) are taken directly from the bands 2010 EP, Constant Headache, and feature the full-bore screamo punk-pop band they had morphed into by that point. Again, the raw aggression and ferocity of their delivery does battle with Johnsons affinity for pop hooks, though the former elements come to the fore more aggressively on these songs. The punishing tempos and brevity of Constant Nothing and Done Right Discount Flooring border on hardcore and are rife with the frustrated youthful energies of pent-up suburban ennui. A testament to their early angst and a blueprint for paths both taken and not, Songs from Northern Torrance is an interesting snapshot of a band whose maturation from that same point of origin has been a major theme in their later catalog. ~ Timothy Monger