The Joy Formidable (photo: Live4ever)
Sought-after Welsh rock trio The Joy Formidable are the latest act to sign to Canvasback Music/Atlantic Records. The label will release the band’s full- length debut in early 2011. The Joy Formidable’s eight-song EP “A Balloon Called Moaning” has won them critical praise from a variety of outlets, including the NME, who have consistently raved about the band’s style of “grungey pop [that] is sure to win over swathes of converts.” SPIN called the release “ambitious,” noting: “drenched in fuzzy bass, propelled by…driving percussion… the album transforms ear-stabbing reverb into something pretty, airy, girly and sometimes dark.” The New York Times’ Jon Pareles praised the songs’ “cryptic lyrics that glint with urgency,” and said that “the music regenerates the turbulent haze of 1990s rock, but it’s less tormented and more anthemic, confident of the pop structures at its core.”
The Joy Formidable will hit the road for a headlining North American tour beginning on November 3rd in Toronto, Ontario. Prior to that, the band will headline the Emerge NME Radar tour in September and October, making stops at various venues throughout the UK. Currently the band is on the road in Australia with acclaimed bands The Temper Trap and Passion Pit. Headlining tour dates below.
The Joy Formidable was conceived by longtime friends Ritzy Bryan and Rhydian Dafydd when they were both students in Wales. After they relocated to London and brought in drummer Matt Thomas, they got down to writing material for their upcoming debut album. The resulting sound melds the huge expanses of the band members’ native Welsh countryside with the hectic nature of their new London home. That sound has won them the praise of the UK press and airplay on the UK’s Radio 1. The band has been working in the studio on tracks recently with highly regarded producer/mixer Rich Costey (Muse, Foo Fighters, Glasvegas) in anticipation of an early 2011 album release; a single from those sessions, “I Don’t Want To See You Like This,” is due out this fall.
Tour dates below:
11/3 Toronto, ON Horeshoe Tavern
11/4 Montreal, QC Petit Campus
11/5 Quebec City, QC L’agitee
11/6 Northampton, MA Iron Horse
11/8 Columbus, OH Wexner Center@ Univ of Ohio
11/9 Chicago, IL Schubas
11/11 Washington, DC Black Cat
11/12 Harrisburg, PA The Abbey
11/13 Allston, MA Great Scott Sun
11/15 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
11/16 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom