Big Joanie - Back Home (2022) Hi Res

Though their sound was forged in the art galleries, packed venues, and cramped studios of London's contemporary DIY punk scene, this bold trio expands their vision to encompass a far wider sonic palette on their second full-length, Back Home. And the punk rock band does so to great effect here, from the clearer sounding production the better to hear those loud, chiming guitars with to the subtle use of strings, and an expansion on some tracks towards clever downtempo grooves. This is the sort of aesthetic leap that lands artists in critics' Top 10 lists at the end of the year, and on the sets of television talk shows for all of the nation to admire (first the UK, then the US, one hopes).

It's still art punk, made by one of our greatest contemporary punk bands, and it's beyond fitting that the album lands on the Olympia, Washington-based Kill Rock Stars. Back Home was tracked at Hermitage Works in North London, then mixed with Margo Broom, while the unexpectedly perfect violin work is by Charlotte Valentine of art-rockers No Home. They clearly have taken inspiration from such disparate sources as Nirvana, Solange, and Fleetwood Mac; no one's going to lazily compare them to the Slits and the Raincoats any longer.

Get to know Big Joanie not because you have to but because you must: Stephanie Phillips on guitar and lead vocals, Chardine Taylor-Stone on drums and backing vocals, and bassist and backing singer Estella Adeyeri. According to press materials, the Black feminist punks' album title is about a search for the idea of home in the wake of diaspora, while the embroidered cover art, a collaboration with artist Angelica Ellis, refers to the Caribbean homes the artists' families left behind to move to the UK in the 1950s and 60s. These strong questions raised about the nature of identity are reinforced by their stunning sonic expansion.