Oakland’s Club Night returned last month with the bittersweet news that they’d be releasing their first album in six years, Joy Coming Down, with the celebration of their follow-up to 2019’s What Life being overshadowed by the new project’s context as a meditation on loss and grief. Lead single “Palace” indicated that this new chapter would veer even further from the playful bounce and squeals heard on the band’s 2017 debut EP Hell Ya in favor of something more aggressively post-punk with a hint of experimentation in its modulated-vocal intro.
Yet there’s still plenty of hope threaded within the record, as heard on the newly released second single “Judah,” which sees Josh Bertram mourning “ancient walls crumbling down” and celebrating the “joy waiting” behind them. Backing him is a more melodic version of the band’s familiar sound, with an added sense of triumph coming through courtesy of a guitar part that sounds closely tied to the Explosions in the Sky discography. “I think this song does a good job of encapsulating a lot of the varying energies on the album, moving between punk, math rock, and more explorative softer moments like the very William Basinski–esque slow fade outro,” Bertram shares.
Discussing the track’s lyrical significance, he continues on to note that “Judah” is a “lyrical shrine” to his grandmother, who passed away amid the two years it took to record Joy Coming Down. “She was my best friend and a wellspring of inspiration for creative pursuits, but even more than that she was my longest running collaborator, whether it was letting me use her old family photos for album art, filming her playing the piano for a music video, or writing lyrics that drew on stories from her life. Even if she didn’t quite understand the end product, she always seemed to respect my intentions. This song was a helpful realization that her presence and genetics continue to live on through everyone in our family and that we will see her spirit again and again cropping up in the next generation, as well as in myself.”
Check out the new tribute below, and pre-order Joy Coming Down here ahead of its May 2 release via Tiny Engines.
