3 out of 5

Label: Joyful Noise Recordings

Produced by: Mike Lust

Love ’em, hate ’em… probably a little bit of both, if you’d been sticking around and picking up JoA’s near yearly releases between 1997 and 2020. He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands is not the record to break that uneven “streak,” displaying the band’s pros and cons within a single song, multiple times over; it’s either one of their most accessibly chill discs – nary a Kinsella yelp on this whole thing – or one of their most humdrum, monotone ones, with tracks very stripped down to repeating and plodding drum beats and a thin, sing-song melody. Are either one of those descriptions great selling points? How does one sell JoA?

While certain releases I’d be hard-pressed to do so, while others just don’t feel very representative – making a pitch to listen to one of those discs feel disingenuous – He’s Got The Whole This Land does allow for a formula that I think works for the group’s generally decisive listens: read off some of Tim’s most noxious lyrics (joined this time by Melina Ausikaitis, who offers up her own zingers), and then before your intended audience can shake their heads and ask, “is the album supposed to be funny?” – maybe! Sometimes! – you put on any given song, and let the weirdly catchy, off-kilter bop kind of work its magic.

The recording session for this release was apparently snipped from long jam sessions, the group unable to commit to writing isolated songs, and I can’t argue with that decision: despite the worrisomely improv-sounding nature of that (worrisomely because an already indulgent band going improv doesn’t sound great…), the 11 tracks, while maybe not always super unique from one to the other, are surprisingly not as open-ended sounding as one might assume. I mean, the band’s writing style, in its many iterations (at least post its initial, emo-tainted phase), has always produced songs composed of moments, and not necessarily set verses and choruses, but I can’t say I felt misled by anything on this album; everything starts out as it intends to go, and doesn’t trail along for more than a few minutes.

Lyrically, it’s the semi-usual shitshow of cringey silliness and randomness and the occasionally smart or interesting run of thoughts; Kinsella has gotten away with this for years because he has a kind of “take me as I am” delivery, and that’s assisted by Ausikaitis’ colorless singing, either cheering Tim on or going solo. In both cases, I found the singing more tolerable than I have on many JoA albums – where I normally hit a limit with the off-key screeches – blending well with the forward-momentum vibe of the compositions. It’s like a step beyond “take me as I am” to just, like, not even caring if you’re listening.

He’s Got The Whole This Land Is Your Land In His Hands is as though Joan of Arc, with its many vocal haters over the years – like the Pitchfork review, tearing this thing apart – has evolved into a perpetual motion music machine, outputting music for their own enjoyment, your choice whether or not you listen. The album is pretty ephemeral as a result, but that also means I don’t hate it and remain down with seeing what else the machine might deliver