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For their third album, Little Joy, Australian post-punk minimalists My Disco decided it was time to make a change. Like their second album, Paradise, they recorded the album with engineer extraordinaire Steve Albini, but when it came time to finish production on the album they made the surprising choice to work with Silverchair and the Presets producer Scott Horscroft. Surprisingly, the record retains the band's minimal style, with Horscroft allowing Albini's raw recording style to shine through, showcasing the dark and biting sound the band has cultivated over the years. This choice proves to be a boon to My Disco, whose minimal, repetitive sound is enhanced by the ability to hear all of the jagged edges of their angular sound, creating a sense of depth through the timbre of the instruments rather than through the quantity of them. It's this quality that makes Little Joy an engrossing listen. Through the use of simple repetition, songs like "Young" and "Rivers" do more than just draw the listener into the song; they draw them into the room with the band, giving them time to explore every choppy, dissonant chord and the chant-like vocal passages. What My Disco might lack in dynamics, they more than make up with atmospherics, showing again and again on Little Joy that sparse arrangements can feel just as spacious as grander recordings. ~ Gregory Heaney
