Bugland

No Joy makes intricate, maximalist pop that obscures its genre-obliterating tendencies with a thin shoegaze disguise. The road to Bugland, No Joys fifth full-length album, was a long journey with swift, significant changes along the way. The project operated as a somewhat standard textural noise rock band for years before becoming the solo vehicle of producer, songwriter, and creative polymath Jasamine White-Gluz. 2020s Motherhood drove home just how different No Joy was when acting as a refractive lens for White-Gluzs artistic imagination, with a set of dense and ambitious songs that leaned on the influence of the Deftones one moment and No Doubt the next, and switched gears from trip-hop-informed grooves to nu-metal aggression without notice. The main accomplishment of Motherhood, however, was how White-Gluz managed to condense all of these almost absurdly dissimilar sounds into a cohesive and enjoyable whole, and she repeats this confounding feat on Bugland. This time around, shes joined by co-producer Fire-Toolz, a like-minded artist with a similar ear for the loud and the crowded who helps carve out space across these eight songs for even more conflicting ideas, tones, and switch-ups than usual. The duo manage to craft an exceptionally dynamic sound without ever subtracting layers. "Bits" moves through both heavy alt-rock grooves and more subdued segments, but the less-explosive passages actually contain more information, with White-Gluz singing brightly wistful melodies that almost get into Sheryl Crow territory over waves of MIDI bass, blitzed microsonic electronic percussion, and dream pop guitar leads. Any given moment of Bugland lands on this level of jarring, unexpected sounds that should clash horribly but do not. "Save the Lobsters" sounds like Seefeel collaborating with Autechre on a Republica remix, while "Garbage Dream House" starts out glitchy and abstract before getting into Cocteau Twins-esque dream pop styles and eventually melting into a gentle flurry of synths and strings. As fractured and messy as No Joy might sound on paper, the ideas are articulated clearly and powerfully. "Bather in the Bloodcells" chops grunge power chords and shoegaze ambience with an axe borrowed from Yellow Magic Orchestra, and closing track "Jelly Meadow Bright" flits through movements of trance-inducing mellowness and deconstructed hyperpop beats with screamed metal vocals and masterfully played saxophone soloing. Like much of No Joys work, Bugland never loses control or overwhelms, even though its arrangements are incredibly complex. Instead, the songs shift and derail in ways that feel natural and sometimes even weirdly familiar. Its a marvel of design and execution that registers mostly as activated, unrelenting noise pop and invites listeners to discover something new and joyfully befuddling every time they listen back. ~ Fred Thomas