Better Joy shares bittersweet alternative love song ‘Dead Plants’
The Manchester based band pore over details of well-worn relationships with intention and vulnerability.
Photo: Press
Fronted and created by Bria Keely and completed by her band, Better Joy have weaved a straightforward and multifaceted tale of contrast since embarking on their musical quest to find beauty in contradiction. Their debut release Hard To Love brought together melodic simplicity with the complexity of the topic of self-love to introduce a bright, jangly shoegaze sound, and their recently released single Dead Plants has only gone on to reinforce this fine-tuned ability to be both bleak and melancholic and bright and fun – proving Better Joy to be an exciting and extremely fresh addition to the alternative-pop scene.
Fusing tlements of classic and contemporary sounds, Better Joy blend grumbling basslines, shoegazey guitars and wispy vocals on Dead Plants to explore the unconditional and uncomfortable love that can persist in fading relationships. “I love you, but you make it hard to like you”, Keely repeats above solitary, distorted guitars before the addition of further sonic juxtapositions with a full and bold indie chorus; a move that keeps the listener intrigued and goes to show Better Joy’s strength of song writing with structural twists and turns.
All this experimenting with opposites tickles the eardrum but definitely does not overwhelm in any way. Instead, the listener is tantalised and intrigued by the variety of sounds, and is also softened and disarmed by the lyrical vulnerability and profundity. Better Joy are for sure finding the beauty in contrasts and we’re looking forward to following them on their musical mission.
Dead Plants is out now via Fader Amp.