Ears Wide Open: Joy Weather

Kevin Bronson on January 30th, 2020

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As happens with departures, breakups and other partings of the ways, songwriter Brian Ishiba didn’t know what he had until it was gone. In the case of the song “Oh California,” it was good old suburban Los Angeles.

Ishiba fronts the L.A. trio Joy Weather, who released their self-titled debut album of emo-inspired indie-rock last week. The band got its start under the name Royce, but its evolution was put on hold a few years ago when Ishiba moved to Tokyo, where he had attended college. While living across the Pacific, he released the solo EP “How It Goes” before eventually returning stateside, where his band got a fresh start under the new name.

The open-hearted ruminations on “Joy Weather” suggest Ishiba has wrestled with the perils of twentysomething life, and maybe even won a few rounds. Though, of course, nothing is certain. “Oh California / Turns out I’ve made a mistake / It wasn’t you it was me / Or at least I think,” he sings. The chunky riffs of the lead track “Fake It Til You Make It” reveal the weariness Ishiba feels from wearing his “Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky” guise.

The album strikes an especially poignant, melancholy note on the closing song “This Is America,” as Ishiba relays a random encounter with skinheads who shout “Go back where you came from!” It’s all-too-familiar hatred directed at ethnic minority Americans, and in the final verse the songwriter asks, “Say ma / Why’d those men / Scream ‘ching chong’ at us?” She replies in Japanese, her message ending with “grow strong, be kind.”

||| Stream: “Fake It Til You Make It” and “Oh California”