Joyce Manor are California pop-punk legends and I Used To Go To This Bar is this epochal band operating at the top of their game. They continue to deliver relentlessly satisfying rock music in a manner that makes it look simply effortless. The Torrance, California-hailing trio of Barry Johnson, Chase Knobbe, and Matt Ebert are at a point in their career where their position as one of the most beloved rock bands is a foregone conclusion. Their seventh album, produced by Brett Gurewitz (of Bad Religion and Epitaph Records CEO) finds the group continuing to find rich new veins to tap in their short-and-sweet songcraft without losing an ounce of bite that gained them such repute in the first place. A bustle of activity that followed the release of 2022’s excellent 40 Oz. to Fresno and included an instantly memorable appearance on John Mulaney’s Everybody’s in L.A. and a retrospective assessment of the group’s seminal 2011 self-titled debut as part of Pitchfork’s esteemed Sunday Review series. The band’s had a whirlwind touring schedule over the last few years, which has included an outing with Weezer and multiple sold-out shows at the legendary California venues Hollywood Palladium (including a guest performance by Mark Hoppus for the fan favorite “Heart Tattoo”) and Long Beach Arena. This new record retains the band’s penchant for punchy hooks while sounding fuller, more in-your-face, and all-around bigger than ever, with an all-star crew of collaborators along for this wild ride. Along with mixing pro Tony Hoffer (M83, Beck), behind-the-boards legend Tom Lord-Alge lent his Enema of the State engineer magic to several I Used To Go To This Bar cuts, including the first single “All My Friends Are So Depressed.” The album also features a rotating cast of drummers, including touring drummer Jared Shavelson, Social Distortion’s David Hildago, Jr., and Joey Waronker—the latter of whom is currently hitting the skins for Oasis’ reunion tour.
late night drive home have never known a world without internet — without access to the endless stream of joy, sorrow, and titillation that we all tune in and tune out to on the daily. In many ways, the guys can’t extricate themselves from that reality, but they’re trying to grapple with it. The culmination of that, then, is the buoyant yet ominous as I watch my life online, the band’s debut album on Epitaph. “The record is a critique and a meta representation of the current online landscape: a whole new world or giant united country that connects us between cities, forcing us to be online. Instant gratification is at our fingertips — likes, follows, and entertainment a click away,” says guitarist Juan “Ockz” Vargas. “It shows the listener how we grew up in the early days of peak internet — how we saw it all unfold. We want to give our perspective on the internet while creating art alongside it.” late night drive home was born in El Paso, Texas, and Chaparral, New Mexico, hardworking communities where the collars were mostly blue — a quality that the band would bring to their music as self-taught craftsmen. Comprising guitarist Juan “Ockz” Vargas, singer Andre Portillo, drummer Brian Dolan, and bassist Freddy Baca, the entirely self-taught quartet released their first EP as a full band, 2021’s Am I sinking or Am I swimming?, and blew up with the single “Stress Relief,” a blast of early-Aughts indie that racked in tens of millions of streams. Their first pull compilation of songs, How Are We Feeling? dropped in 2022, and after signing with Epitaph in 2023 — and releasing 2024’s grunge-inspired EP I'll remember you for the same feeling you gave me as i slept — they found themselves playing stages their indie idols previously shredded: Coachella, Shaky Knees, Austin City Limits, and Kilby Block Party. Since the end of the pandemic, though, the band has been dreaming up as I watch my life online. “Sonically the record is expertly produced — it was the first work we put out that was recorded in professional studios and not our bedrooms,” Vargas says about working with producer Sonny Diperri. “Topically, the album is about the internet. As a Gen-Z band, we want to give an accurate representation of how it feels to be always online. Our generation is forced to care so much about its online identity, it’s like ‘your profile is as important as your outfit.’” The resulting suite of tracks is a series of online vignettes that hammers home the band’s message: the photos on your phone shouldn’t be your identity; your posts aren’t your inner monologue.