In the case of recognizing types of musical greatness, there are titles so broad and grandiose that it appears inconceivable to bestow them on any single entity. (“The most important band on the planet,” “the king of rock ‘n’ roll,” and so forth.) On the reverse excessive, there are distinctions so particular they hardly appear notable. I’m about to debate an instance of the latter, whereas additionally making a case for this specific distinction being particularly notable.
It issues the southern California punk band Joyce Manor and the way they’ve made two of the best 19-minute albums of all time.
First, some pertinent context: Joyce Manor makes quick albums. Hardcore followers will point out this throughout the first minute of explaining their curiosity within the band, and informal followers will convey it up within the first three seconds. It’s the most well-known truth about them. In 2016, they put out an album referred to as Cody that was exactly 24 minutes and 30 seconds, and that’s their longest document up to now. It’s like Joyce Manor’s Sandinista!and it’s shorter than a typical episode of The Every day podcast.
Joyce Manor’s dedication to placing out LPs which can be usually labeled as EPs by most “regular” bands represents an odd type of duration-derived integrity. The band’s singer-songwriter Barry Johnson is an avowed fan of Guided By Voices and The Smiths, and his songs characterize a surprisingly clear marriage of these bands rendered within the model of punchy melodic punk. Joyce Manor songs usually boast clear and distinctive guitar riffs paying homage to the components Johnny Marr created as backdrops for Morrissey’s miserablist witticisms. And so they emulate the brutally succinct buildings most well-liked by Robert Pollard.
This strategy has unquestionably restricted Joyce Manor’s business prospects. Regardless of a strong on-line fan base and their real generational significance as a musical touchstone of the so-called “Tumblr” period from the early 2010s, Joyce Manor doesn’t actually have a million month-to-month listeners on Spotify. On the identical time, nevertheless, Johnson’s skill to transpose rock classicist songwriting on to a mode of music traditionally geared towards center and excessive school-aged listeners has attracted an viewers of listeners who have been getting into their 30s again when Tumblr was nonetheless a factor. (Considering particularly of John Mulaney — who referred to Joyce Manor as “one in all my favourite bands” whereas introducing on his personal present — and me.)
Probably the most celebrated Joyce Manor document is 2014’s By no means Hungover Once moreone in all this century’s definitive pop-punk statements, a near-perfect amalgam of crunchy guitar-pop and financial lyrical storytelling. It additionally clocks in — in response to the digital show on the CD boombox in my workplace — at precisely 19:06. This was an enchancment on their basic debut, 2011’s self-titled Joyce Manorwhich was practically 19 minutes lengthy. (Eighteen minutes and 42 seconds, to be exact.) The follow-up launch, 2012’s Of All Issues I Will Quickly Develop Drainedfell in need of that mark artistically (it has no track as beloved because the self-titled’s “Fixed Headache”) and by way of the clock (it’s 5 minutes and 38 seconds shorter, which might be too quick).
For Joyce Manor followers of the extra “superior” classic, Joyce Manor albums recall the brevity of one other SoCal act, the Seaside Boys. Notably the pre-Pet Sounds interval the place the late, nice Brian Wilson composed a collection of songs that (like Barry Johnson with Joyce Manor) obsess over the distant triumphs and still-painful heartaches of adolescence, over music that’s insistently catchy and continuously upbeat. One thing about rising up as a rock ‘n’ roll devotee close to Los Angeles makes an individual a nostalgist earlier than their time. (A By no means Hungover Once more observe just like the self-explanatory “Finish Of The Summer season” make this connection apparent.)
The Seaside Boys additionally routinely put out quick data, typically within the excessive 20-minute vary. Although you might simply argue they need to have been even shorter — their best pre-Pet Sounds document, 1965’s The Seaside Boys At present!could be Cody-sized in case you lower the solid-but-inessential cowl “Do You Wanna Dance?” and the borderline-insulting filler observe “Bull Session With ‘Huge Daddy.’” To their credit score, Joyce Manor by no means trouble with filler. Their albums arrive pre-edited to the bone, with solely the killer components left intact.
I convey this up as a result of Joyce Manor simply put out a brand new document. It’s referred to as I Used To Go To This Barand it’s one in all my favourite issues they’ve ever carried out, probably since By no means Hungover Once more. Although explaining why is a problem. This band’s sonic signatures — these grabby riffs, Johnson’s useful punk-dude howl, the “younger man’s melancholy” emotional tenor — have remained intact for the previous 15 years. The upside of being identified for brevity is that it may well conceal a fairly slim and restricted musical assault. If Joyce Manor have been extra long-winded, they’d have worn out their welcome way back. (As most bands of this ilk inevitably do.)
However on I Used To Go To This BarJoyce Manor retains their intuitive really feel for 2 necessary (and more and more uncommon) expertise in songwriting — they know tips on how to get your consideration, and so they know when to depart. Take “I Know The place Mark Chen Lives,” which opens the document and instantly establishes its underlying theme (i.e. songs that replicate on the messed-up misadventures of previously residing as an addict) within the guise of an immediately anthemic punk-rock struggle track (which could, paradoxically, make some listeners wish to pound beers). Johnson tells his story utilizing a naked minimal of nouns and verbs: “Title and residential handle, a pair of bony legs / Is it actual? Can it really feel whenever you bash its head? / When somebody talks so much contained in the hashish store / ‘Hey, give me all the cash, babe, and nobody will get shot!’” By the point you’ve clocked it as a track about robbing a dispensary, Joyce Manor has already moved on to trace two.
Glimpses of untamed tales recur all through I Used To Go To This Barinterspersed with tiny snapshots of suburban banality. My favourite is from the album’s most blatant Morrissey rip, “All My Buddies Are So Depressed,” when Johnson sings, “Key lime pie and Frampton stay / want that I might fucking die.” Moz himself would fucking die if he may give you one thing that good in 2026.
Once I take heed to I Used To Go To This Baras I’ve many occasions up to now few days, I by no means suppose, “There ought to be extra of this.” Quite the opposite, I discover that it’s precisely the correct quantity. Though we as listeners have been conditioned currently to equate “extra” with “higher.” In 2025, Jack White raised some hackles when he questioned this tendency in stay music, with the fetishes for three-hour exhibits and a number of encores, arguing that “I’ve seen a plethora of rock and roll gigs that lasted 45 minutes and blew my thoughts and impressed me past perception.” However the “bloat is finest” mentality is worse with recorded music. Among the best-selling albums of current years, together with Morgan Wallen’s I’m The Downside (virtually 117 minutes) and Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Division (greater than 65 minutes), drone on endlessly whereas exploiting the “longer tracklists imply extra {dollars}” incentives of time-sucking streaming platforms.
Personally, I can’t think about selecting to placed on I’m The Downside once I may simply take heed to I Used To Go To This Bar six occasions in a row. Which jogs my memory: The brand new Joyce Manor album is their first 19-minute launch since By no means Hungover Once more. It’s, in truth, virtually precisely the identical size, coming in at 19 minutes and 10 seconds. On this context, I suppose, these spare 4 seconds may very well be thought-about wasteful. However I’ve determined to forgive it this time.
I Used To Go To This Bar is out now through Epitaph. Discover extra data right here.