“They remind me of early Black Flag, minus the talent and energy.”
-David St. John, Rob's father, on Jozie Days
With mental illness at an all-time high, there has been a heavy influx of musicians who either A. create songs that address mental health like they should, or B. create complete and utter sonic disasters the likes of the songs in the catalogue of Jozie Days, a fairly new group. Well, I assume it's a group, anyway. Reading their Bandcamp, one will find that they're apparently from North Carolina. Not like it matters; a band could hail from northernmost Scandinavia and still play bluegrass or country.
Jozie Days describe themselves, with straight faces, as an 'Industrial Metal Team possessed by Satan.' This is already a bad start, as they straight up tell you the kind of edgelords they are. They're not the cool kind of edgelords like emos or punks, they're straight up Satanist-wannabes. But, y'know, you can't judge a book by its cover... Except in this case, you can, because with any description that has 'possessed by Satan' at the end, you kind of already know what you're in for.
Regarding visual illustrations, I notice they've got this ugly Hatsune Miku lookalike as their sort of mascot, who I can only assume is the titular Jozie Days. As someone who likes a little bit of Vocaloid stuff, I disapprove of this resemblance. That aside, she too overflows with unnecessary edge. Vic Rattlehead she ain't.
Now that I'm done with all the unnecessary surface-scratching, I'm going to give my thoughts on their six songs and tell you exactly why I think they are all terrible and why you shouldn't give them or the people who made them the time of day.
Hellspawn - ...What the hell? (no pun intended) To start, the only lyrics are "Hellspawn" being repeated by what sounds like an edgy anime girl. That's it, really. There's something I hear that sounds like audio from some televangelist's tv program or whatever. Overall, it's kind of unpleasant on the ears, but it's only a little over a minute and a half. It only goes downhill from here, I'm afraid.
White Jesus - Absolute assault on the ears. This was the first one I listened to when I discovered this group, and I didn't last even 30 seconds before switching back to listening to Ultravox (It was either "When You Walk Through Me" or "Some of Them"). The lyrics, which you can barely hear the singing of over all the garbage they've crammed into this track, are a generic and tired jab at Christianity, adding literally nothing to the conversation whatsoever. OKAY! I get it, singer bloke, you can scream real good, now shut up, you scruffy twat.
Mr. President - If there's one thing I do not like any kind of group doing no matter how much I like them, it's being blatantly and utterly partisan and political (Looking at you, Depeche Mode). I don't know why I say that now, because that's not really what they do here. In fact, this is far more unpleasant. Basic rundown of the lyrics is that some wacko, most likely a Dalek if the vocals are anything to go by, kidnaps the president or something and tortures him, and the government's out to get the creepy bastard, presumably because the Doctor's seemingly not up for the job. This singer is seriously a two-trick pony, it's either sing incredibly off-key in a weird way or scream like a banshee getting boinked by Freddy Krueger. On the subject of boinking, a little over halfway through the song, and there comes a guitar solo that sounds like a synthesizer having sex with an angle grinder.
Dead Politicians - ...I spoke too soon, it would seem. Here, we have a deranged and utterly political fuckfest of a song taking a jab at religion once again, as well as politicians, the latter of whom they really want dead. Look, I don't care what your political views are, I have my own opinions, but angrily ranting about how much you want to murder politicians, etc. as dirty and scummy as they admittedly are, makes you look like a complete freak. Calling them 'pedophile elite' is also very tinfoil hat-y, which is not helped by the overall anti-government sentiments of this song. Like White Jesus when it comes to religion, this adds nothing new to the conversation regarding the state of politics. The inclusion of audio of R. Budd Dwyer's suicide is easily one of the edgiest choices made here.
I Need to Break - Yeah, well how about I break your arm? Sorry, I got too ahead of myself. Screamy garbage like the other ones, harsh on the ears, uncreative, tryhardish lyrics, and guitar noises(?) I can only compare to actual flatulence with some creepy humming-like sound alongside it. This drags on and on and on, and every second of it is insufferable. So far, this is one of the weakest songs in their catalogue. If anything, it's most of the problems I have with their material rolled into one song!
Head-Man Fucker - Stupid title aside, the problems are about the same. I don't need to write them out one last time because you know damn well what they are already. I can't bear to write anymore about these fucking songs, so I'm going to leave it at that.
To conclude, I have little faith in Jozie Days. With them being what they are, haters of THE MAINSTREAM!(tm) I would assume, I'm not sure if their goal is widespread success in music, but I don't think they're worthy of even moderate success. Their songs are incredibly cookie cutter... that is, if said cookie cutters made extremely sharp and jagged shapes and were made of compressed dead weevils whose pieces break off and end up in the cookies. If you like getting earraped, this group might be for you...
...Actually, let me rephrase that, if you like getting earraped, do yourself a favor and avoid songs by this group, and instead go down a dark alleyway and let a homeless man stick his dick in your ear. Might not be pleasant, but it won't rupture your eardrums the same way these songs do.
If you're a normal person like me (me? normal? who the fuck am I kidding?), please just avoid this in general.
Score: 0/10.
Also, reader, don't be a complete dickhead to these guys - no harassment. Be decent, please. They're likely already somewhat insulted by what I've said during this review; don't make it worse. Enough said.
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