3 out of 5

Label: Polyvinyl

Producer: Graeme Gibson

I guess I’m not a bred-on-Portable-Model JOA fan.  I guess I didn’t “grow” with them; I guess I resisted any and all references to the group until my collector tendencies foisted their Perishable Records album upon me… and I liked it.  Interestingly, it turned out that that album – “Terror Rape…” whatever whatever – was comprised of the leftovers that didn’t match the album released on Polyvinyl at the same time, “So Much Staying Alive…” and whatever whatever.  Recently I picked up a lotta stuff at a Polyvinyl holiday sale, amongst it some JOA albums – Boo! Human and Flowers.  I have a handful of Arc stuff, which I enjoy to greater or lesser degrees, and certainly I own enough to get the gist of this always shifting and morphing “band,” but they have like forty handfuls of stuff, so I’ll pick up whatever bits and pieces come my way.

Boo! has been written up pretty glowingly by Arc followers, so I was really looking forward to it.  So I listened to ‘Flowers’ first.  And REALLY dug it.  Then I listened to Boo!… and thought it was okay, but sort of highlighted the aspects of the group I don’t like (namely being overly precious).  It turns out that ‘Flowers’ is comprised of the leftover that didn’t go into the Boo! release.  Go feckin’ figure.

About half of this album matches the version of JOA I dig – wandering rhythms (pristinely and deliciously captured by Graeme Gibson) with splashes of twang and sudden shuddering patterns of drums colliding in a shamble that sounds inspired, a note discovered just that moment, but in sync at the same time.  It’s the sound of a rotating group of artists who know each other and know each other’s playing styles.  I’m even grown accustomed to Tim Kinsella’s vocals, which were probably the biggest roadblock initially, his trademark screech ringing of gimmick.  But I found that his surreal prose and warble worked as another shade of these elements, another instrument forming part of the puzzle.  And sometimes Joan of Arc would come together for a real song, or a real chorus, and these highlights make the wanderings cohesive.

So: that stuff is totally on Boo!  It’s cut in appropriately, meaning it’s not heavy toward any particular part of the album, and I think the sequencing is well done – the acoustic opening and closing tracks are just oblique enough and careful enough to not step into obnoxious territory.  But in the middle we get some stuff I’m reading is “beautiful” and that’s the precious stuff I’m talking about, where lyrics make me roll my eyes and the compositions are just too formal.  I think that Joan of Arc – and the million contributors that moniker encompasses – are one of the most amazing music acts to spring from the punky / folky / wanky Chicago scene because of how sprawling their style can be.  This means I haven’t really heard a perfect JOA album (although I love ‘Flowers,’ so maybe that’s now a lie), but there are ones that lean more toward stuff I dig and ones that lean more toward… other stuff.  Boo!, for me, is the latter.  It’s another fascinating contribution to their lineage, but isn’t going to be first in my rotation of “greatest Joan of Arc albums”.  (I rotate that shit all the time, so I know what I’m talking about.)