CD of The Week

The Joy Formidable have always excelled at playing to the back seats, on record and in concert. With each successive collection of songs, those seats get farther and farther back from where they started. With new album Wolf's Law, they sound capable of filling the same arenas and stadiums where they opened for the likes of Muse and Foo Fighters.

Single "Cholla" serves as album centerpiece and mission statement with its chorus of "What are we doing? Where are we going?" It's clear that the band has figured out the answer to both of those questions and they've made it easy and enjoyable enough to go along for the ride. Merging the shoegaze bluster of their A Balloon Called Moaning EP with the metallic blister of their debut LP The Big Roar, the album plays like the long-lost love child of Metric and Swervedriver, roaring bigger and arguably better than anything the band has done before.

While not every song on the record matches "Cholla" and sister single "The Ladder is Ours" ("Maw Maw Song" delivers what it promises but not much else), Ritzy, Rhydian and Matt have more than enough confidence to carry them through such relative slumps. There are plenty of other potential future singles and live staples to push The Joy Formidable's sound and profile back to even farther seats. This is one roar that can carry. Catch them up close while you still can at their just announced Union Transfershow on April 20th.

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