Following the relative lack of success on Gossip’s first mainstream label release, Music For Men in 2009, the band seem to have adopted a slightly altered approach for their most recent record A Joyful Noise. First of all, they traded off production superstar, Rick Rubin, for fellow major player Brian Higgins.
Vocally it seems Beth Ditto has made a conscious effort to inject a distinct dynamic into this record, pairing her signature chorus builds with spoken vocal narrative and Madonna-esque vocal vignettes underpinned by pop-synth textures and painfully over-produced electronic drum samples.
Thus, this album falls short, very, very short.
A standout, pop-driven single seems to elude the band throughout the entire course of the record, while it remains blatantly obvious that this was the type of song the band were straining to write for the album.
Lyrically it’s not unfair to assume very little of Beth Ditto, her appeal never necessarily lay within her deep and poetic lyrical sentiments. A Joyful Noise seems to fall to all new lows however, with the constant presence of obnoxiously clichéd offerings such as “never say never” and “one day at a time” on the attempted wispy synth-driven groove of ‘Move In The Right Direction’, which seems to lumber and stumble where it should soar.
Even Higgins’ input seems to undermine the record rather than redeem it. The overall effect is undeniably thin, polished and clean, which does nothing but detract from the already present sparseness of this relatively uninspiring record.
-Morgan Benson
