Travel often expands the mind, and some Welsh musicians have incredibly elastic mentalities: John Cale went to New York City in 1963 and soon co-founded the Velvet Underground with Lou Reed, thus influencing musical modernity for decades; Jon Langford, after generating punk energy in Mekons, headed to Chicago in the early 1990s and deepened Americana’s émigré aspect.
Ritzy (Rhiannon) Bryan and Rhydian (Dafydd) Davies formed the Joy Formidable in Wales, picked up drummer Matthew Thomas in London and spent considerable time in Utah while creating Into the Blue, the alt-rock trio’s fifth studio full-length. They might not have the cultural significance of Cale or Langford, but they’re no less keen to stretch.
Elasticity includes the ability to snap back, and Into the Blue isn’t so stylistically elongated as its 2018 predecessor, AAARTH. These eleven songs flow more into each other and make a slight return toward earlier albums like 2013’s Wolf’s Law.
They don’t quite double back: if the title track combines the swaying groove of New Wave romance and the ringing guitars of shoegaze rock, the verse sung by Davies contrasts his pastels against Bryan’s more vivid vocal colors, and a tone of serenity reached for, not fully grasped, indicates the band’s maturation.
Not too mature, however, to use a Stooges-simple riff pattern in “Chimes,” albeit within overdriven prettiness, or to get down to classic-rock rhythmic primitivism in “Farrago,” albeit with bass and guitar lunging so far into the sky that Adam Clayton and the Edge seem grounded by comparison.
Pulling and letting go, the Joy Formidable can extend toward the arena-echo noise of “Sevier” and constrict into the plaintive Davies vocal and flamenco-style acoustic picking of “Somewhere New.” Once “Left Too Soon,” in its six minutes, dives into a pulsing undertow and surfaces to finish the album on abruptly clipped notes, Into the Blue has traveled far without losing a direction home.
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