Blades Of Joy

San Francisco outfit Blades of Joy fused an oneiric romanticism with their occasionally jagged textures, pulling equally from shoegaze’s drifting haze and the restless thrust of post-punk. Working-class musicians Inna Showalter on vocals and Anthony OBC on guitar first joined forces on material that later expanded into a full ensemble devoted to their intricately textured noise-pop constructions.

Drawing on the opposing currents of their Bay Area environment, the pair began composing in the winter of 2015, frequently embedding references to San Francisco’s rougher districts and nearby Pacific beaches. Before Blades of Joy existed, Showalter and OBC had already recorded together for OBC’s Swanox project, a cosmic hitchhiker folk endeavor, while each remained active in local groups such as Dissolve and Tony Molina. Following an especially draining tour, OBC proposed that both abandon their existing obligations to launch a new band; Showalter agreed, and the resulting songs quickly assumed a stark, autobiographical character, their poetic lines confronting addiction, rage, and flickers of hope. Sonically they pursued similar contrasts, pairing delicate acoustic reflection in the vein of mid-’90s 4AD acts like Red House Painters and His Name Is Alive with sharper gestures toward shoegaze and punk abrasion. They recruited drummer Marc Deriso and bassist Michael Madden, then began performing within the thriving D.I.Y. communities of San Francisco and Oakland. From 2016 through 2017 the quartet tracked what became their self-titled debut, issued in small numbers by the Melters label in late 2018.