Since Joanna Gruesome rhymes with the name of a certain harp-wielding gal who put out a super-long album in 2010, I somehow assumed that the band would be a darkwave fairy music orchestra, and I was thinking I could write a creepy story about dragons in lieu of a real news article.
Obviously, I was wrong. Rhyming always throws me for a loop.
Joanna Gruesome is actually a five-piece noise pop band from Cardiff, Wales — the members all met in an anger management group and got thrown together to compose a song to perform for all the other participants, and even though they hated each other’s guts at first, they couldn’t deny that they made pretty rad music together. On September 10, they’ll be releasing their debut album Weird Sister via Slumberland in the US and Fortuna POP! in Europe. The band spent about a month hanging out at a freaky hotel in Brighton called The Hell House, where other occupants would experiment with occult rituals and Ouija boards, and many of the songs on Weird Sister emerged as a distraction from all of that.
This is the first time they’ve recorded in a real studio, and they got some production help from MJ of Hookworms. They’ve premiered a single called “Secret Surprises,” which apparently describes a blade fight with a mental illness that’s decided to manifest physically. It’s real noisy and a little bit punk and you can stream it below:
Weird Sister tracklist:
01. Anti Parent Cowboy Killers
02. Sugarcrush
03. Wussy Void
04. Madison
05. Lemonade Girl
06. Secret Surprise
07. Do You Really Wanna Know Why Yr Still In Love With Me?
08. Candy
09. Graveyard
10. Satan
• Joanna Gruesome: http://joannagruesome.bandcamp.com
• Slumberland: http://www.slumberlandrecords.com
• Fortuna POP!: http://www.fortunapop.com
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