ALBUM REVIEW: Sick Joy – We’re All Going To F***ing Die

SO Recordings

Released: 08.07.22

Fatalistic though its title may seem, Sick Joy’s debut album is actually something much closer to a celebration of the spontaneity that makes life worth living. Delivered with an intelligence and acerbic wit that many of their peers can only envy, it also sees the Brighton-based trio make good on their promise as one of the country’s most arresting rock prospects.

Admittedly, Sick Joy’s sound is, in many respects, not a particularly revolutionary one – lashings of fuzz-laden riffs, pounding drums and canny hooks make for a familiar enough sonic palette – and yet, the 12 tracks here are catapulted by such an assured ruthlessness, and feel so snarlingly enormous, that it’s almost as if the three-piece have gone koi pond fishing with a stick of dynamite. WAGTFD is a stinging first blow from a band with dizzying potential.