Storytelling through music

If you believe the best part of music is the storytelling of the lyrics, look no further than Joan of Arc’s newest release, 1984. This album is fairly bare bones when it comes to the instrumentals, which gives it the opportunity to really focus in on the lyricism featured on each track.

The album opens with “Tiny Baby,” and at first listen, this track feels a little odd due to the lack of instruments and the intense story that is being painted with the lyrics at the beginning of the song. As the listener works through the album, it will be clear that this is, in fact, a theme in some of the other songs as well.

“Maine Guy” is another example of Joan of Arc’s storytelling through the lyrics written. The vocals are yet again isolated for the beginning part of the song but are slowly accompanied by some eery sounds in the background as the story continues to be told. Once the song is halfway over there begins to be a bit more complexity to the musical arrangement, but instead of being eery it becomes a bit more welcoming and warm. This song has definite undertones of nostalgia throughout.

On the other hand, “Psy-fi/Fantasy” and the structure of it is entirely different than what has been heard in the earlier parts of the album. This song focuses only on the instrumentals and is very dreamy in nature, which is quite fitting for the title of the song. It is easy to get lost in the dreamland a song like this creates in the listener’s mind, and it is a bummer that it is one of the shortest songs on the album.

“Vermont Girl” possesses a more aggressive sound than the other tracks on the album, which makes for an interesting twist in the record since it is the second to last song. The drama is found in both the vocal styling and the instrumentals, which feature drums and guitars that have a very rock feel to them. This song seems to be a tip of the hat to the fact that Joan of Arc does not necessarily fall into a specific genre.

The album wraps up on a high note with the final song “Forever Jung.” This track, unlike the others on the record, has a very textbook indie feeling to it with the acoustics and distorted echoey vocals. All of the small quirks of this track make it one of the stand out ones on the album, which makes for a strong and memorable finish for 1984.