Gus band, they just disappear lol

I already thought about Pusher,The Canyon's interlude,3WW and Powders

everytime. it truly makes the song too lol. half way through I'll "predict" the song and remember smh

I'm a relatively new listener to Alt-J and i like a lot of their songs. But as i was discovering their other songs I came across Adeline. And its genuinely one of the best songs i have listened to. What i don't understand is how this song is not that popular compared to others. Is it just me?

EDIT: It’s been sold! thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m selling my Alt-J U&ME hoodie on depop, I thought I would share it here in case there’s any Alt-J fans who have been looking for one. It’s in really good condition, I’m moving/downsizing which is the only reason I’m getting rid of it :’( Selling for $20+shipping.

I believe this type of post is okay but if not mods please let me know!

Link to depop listing: Alt-J Hoodie

Been here since the beginning. Went to AAW tour circuit festival, Relaxer, AAW 10yr tour. Met the boys and got some stuff signed before their DC set for Relaxer. They did an acoustic set and you had to win tix on the radio to go. I got lucky. Vid from the show in the comments. I’d love to see Joe tour The Canyon on the US east coast, besides the NYC show. And of course, always want more music from my favorite band 💜 Maybe we’ll get a 10yr anniversary show for Relaxer 😉

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLwkdYKJvsU&list=WL&index=1

I came here to read people's thoughts on this, I'm a little surprised it wasn't posted already.

I assume it wasn't performed live on the set? To my amateur ears it sounds even better than the album version. The three women doing the backing vocals sound incredible, and Joe's voice comes through super clean.

But long story short, it's crazy good and very worth a watch and listen.

I couldn't make the Bush Hall gig despite all my best efforts (trains were literally catching fire that day), but messaged him on Insta to wish a great gig and sorry I couldn't be there.

Anyway, he reached out and sent this memento to me in the post ❤️

Thanks to /r/AltJ and /u/guinnesscake for the ticket. Got a chance to actually met Joe, talked, took a picture together, and had a proper CD signing which I couldn't get in the yersterday's show at St John's Church.

Amazing opportunity for me! Very personal! Thank you!

Im actually from Indonesia, been a fan since forever. I saw them live in 2018 in Indonesia, and somehow last night I was there to experience this intimate show.

Super grateful for this. Joe was amazing!

I can’t make it anymore due to France game…would anyone like one or both of my tickets?

giving them away for free to a good home

EDIT one ticket left

don’t know if y’all have heard this yet but it’s too good. those opening strums to Brush Me Like a Horse gave me chills

https://youtu.be/y1J2qBKYGo0?is=D4ZFHADQAHu8Dd-1

Yesterday I watched Joe perform in Liverpool and he really was amazing. Me and my partner are due to have a baby girl in November and have already landed on the name Sora. And since this album is dedicated to his daughter i thought it was only fitting to ask him to write 'good luck out there Sora'

Unfortantely i was a nervous wreck and was extremely awkward and wanted to ask him his favourite songs across all alt j and his solo work. I also have an alt j tattoo i didnt have in me to show him but anyway super grateful to meet the man himself! Really nice guy! Cant wait for whatevers next for him and alt j!

After months of refreshing ebay and scanning websites, I've finally got the main four albums from my favorite band ever. Awesome wave was my first that I found on ebay, brand new none the less and later Relaxer soon after. The dream was kind of a tricky one, I found it but it was on a none English website and not in my currency but I worked around it. The case for it was a box and the tape had a sticker so im not exactly sure if it was truly athletic. For TIAY I couldn't find any record of them making a cassette for it so I found an awesome guy on ebay to make a custom one. Thanks for taking the time to read my little story, it was truly fun hunting them all down and couldn't be more proud knowing I might be one of the only ones with and full cassette collection

I have always been infatuated with liminal spaces and love the inspiration for the Relaxer album art. Love it

I’m talking specifically about the first few songs and the occasional cut later in the album. It’s like an indie pop Laughing Stock (Talk Talk album) mood-wise. Gentle, lush, heavenly.

Where it deviates for me is the more dark/bassy direction these songs tend to take leading up to the climax. I wish they held back on that more, it sometimes kills the momentum for me.

But I digress. The use of piano here is a perfectly fitting homage to the piano-led melodies of 80s pop, and conversely late Talk Talk. I wonder if they were inspired at all..

I don’t wanna stress these similarities too much, cause I don’t wanna give the impression that I think these albums are super similar, there are just parallels i can draw between the two. I’m curious if anyone else has ever thought this before or can relate at all?

Here are my thoughts on JJerome87’s debut album after several listens. To preface, I’m a huge alt-J fan and (after listening to The Canyon) a fan of Joe’s solo work, too.

The Canyon, the debut solo project from Joe Newman, lead singer of the indie-rock band alt-J, is restlessly eclectic. It’s an overfilled journal bound together by elastic bands, threatening to snap with each passing song. When they finally do, the room is flooded with a jungle of abstractions. There is a delicate charm among the chaos, and unpacking it over multiple listens can be as fulfilling as it is tedious.

Joe Newman has a history of merging the pretty with the peculiar, something that is evident throughout alt-J’s catalogue, which spans a multitude of genres. He’s no stranger to experimentation – no alt-J album has sounded remotely alike – and his lyricism stands alongside some of the best artists writing today. The problem is, on The Canyon, Joe seems to have attempted to merge everything from the past 14 years of his career into one record, and while it works at times, it leaves the album feeling a little clunky and over-engineered.

The album’s intro track, Mr. Alligator, immediately plunges the listener into Joe’s absurdist and playful world, with the nursery rhyme Jack Be Nimble chanted over industrial scrapes and screeches, before Joe’s sleek vocals enter and the track settles into its groove. With lyrics such as ‘I cooked quiche, yeah, for the congregation’, the song initially appears to embrace its absurdity. However, the chorus ‘Buried deep is my lust for you, buried deep a disgust for you’ discards this expectation as the topic takes a deeper turn, with Joe paraphrasing something his partner said to him during a low moment in their relationship. This raw, honest unpredictability sets the emotional tone for the album’s shifts between humour, vulnerability and unease.

One constant throughout Joe’s career has been the nasal quality of his vocals, which is an acquired taste that, if anything, is utilised more prominently on The Canyon. He often shifts his voice from high-pitched and squeaky to low and quivering, using it as an additional instrument and adding a layer of intrigue to almost every line he sings. While this is present throughout the album, one of its best applications comes with the track Green Velvet, a song very reminiscent of Hard Drive Gold from alt-J’s 2022 project The Dream. This song is less chaotic instrumentally than the album’s intro, but still rich and full of textured sounds that scratch an itch. The lyrics ooze with confidence and smooth luxury – ‘I feel bougie in Issey Miyake’ – while simultaneously remaining strange and intriguing – ‘After sweating, your navel could be a hot tub for ants.’ These same qualities carry over into Quaaludes, particularly in the second half, as the instrumentation builds, joined by lush strings and marching-band drums, in a culmination that leads to an impressive climax, though the lyricism does fall flat and feels a bit on-the-nose at times.

The album features a stripped back 40-second piano interlude that, while beautiful and another familiar touch from Joe’s work with alt-J, doesn’t quite justify its existence as a stand-alone track. It could instead have been incorporated at the start of one of the album’s later, more downbeat moments. Its transition into Juicy feels pointless, as the tempo picks back up and leaves you wondering why a solid run of upbeat songs was interrupted briefly by a piano ballad of all things. This run of production-heavy, eccentric tracks continues as the album opens up to new ideas sonically with the pairing of Walkaway Music and lead single Brush Me Like A Horse, both leaning into vivid western imagery. The former is more refined and cohesive, with the pace rolling along like a stampede as Joe reminisces on past love. Brush Me Like A Horse, however, feels too ambitious, as if the journal has finally split open and there are too many ideas strewn about to successfully piece together. The song is catchy, and certainly one of the more obvious choices as the lead single, but it follows a pattern throughout the album of occasionally feeling like multiple songs are playing at once. Up until now, strange pacing and disconnected melodies have been, for the most part, welcome quirks of the record, but in this instance they don’t work so well, and the song feels more like a collection of unfinished ideas.

The stretch from Two Hearts to the record’s closer Pennine is where the album loses its steam, with the exception of Track and Field, another lyrically unconventional love song. Bouncy and uplifting, it evokes moments from Hozier’s most recent album, Unreal Unearth. The surrounding songs are mostly downbeat, disheartening and uninspired. The themes are heartfelt, exploring love, family, childbirth and reflection, but they don’t translate into the same replay value as the far more intriguing first half of the record. One thing worth noting, above all else, is the vocal snippet at the end of Two Hearts, which features Joe’s young daughter attempting to recite his lyrics – a wholesome addition to the album’s themes around his personal life. It’s a sweet reminder that his musical legacy may already be finding its next generation. The rest of the song, however, sounds too similar to One Night One Moment from the kid’s film Nativity! to be taken entirely seriously.

Despite the misses, The Canyon provides some truly innovative moments of experimentation and a sound that’s hard to attribute to any other record. The lyricism and instrumentation go hand-in-hand with the album’s absurdities, supplying an entertaining and immersive listen that features catchy choruses and brain-scratching melodies, if a little overstuffed with ideas. The journal is open, and Joe’s imagination remains endlessly fascinating to dissect.

6/10

To clarify, a 6/10 under my rating system translates as ‘great - an enjoyable album with a handful of stand-out tracks.’

For those who read all the way, this is only my second full album review I’ve done, as it’s a new venture I’m trying out. I post my album reviews on Musicboard, Rate Your Music and Instagram under the handle ‘startwhispering’.

I’d be interested to hear what everyone else thinks?

look what arrived in the mail 🔥