Joyce Manor‘s newest effort is a solid but mildly underbaked nostalgia-fest.
Release date: January 30, 2026 | Epitaph | Instagram | Bandcamp | Spotify
I had the distinct misfortune of living in Columbus, Ohio for four years after I graduated college in 2014. I’m being a little over-the-top here, but that time period was basically the core of the hyper-gentrification of the area, specifically my neighborhood (Olde Town East, for the realheads.) My rent was about $600 for a one-bedroom, and then suddenly the abandoned building next door got flipped into apartments and the basement studios were going for double that. There were a lot of burger joints with Edison lightbulbs, if you know what I mean.
One of the casualties of this was the bar about a half-block from me, a genuine dive called Carabar. $1 PBR, super cheap and tasty (and some inexplicably vegan?) fried food, a special called the ‘Hate Crime’ where the bartender got to slap you across the face after. Carabar fucking ruled. It also got demolished to make a highway ramp.
Joyce Manor‘s I Used To Go To This Bar is an ode to places like this, to the feeling of looking back at an old haunt with a healthy dose of melancholy nostalgia. I adore this concept. I think it’s just relatable enough for a large swath of their audience to feel seen, but specific enough that it doesn’t fall into generic whining, which is still a problem for the pop-punk sphere. I Used To Go To This Bar is a completely acceptable album that could have been a great one, which is frustrating. It has a few of my favorite songs of theirs to date, as well as a healthy dose of what I will politely refer to as filler.
I particularly love lead single and The Smiths impression “All My Friends Are So Depressed”, which is deliciously catchy despite the downer vibe. Album opener “I Know Where Mark Chen Lives” is perfectly placed to get the energy up while remaining appropriately angsty. The title track has a great sing-along riff that I think makes for very solid marketing material. And I was pleasantly surprised by the folky romp of “The Oppossum”, with its evocative and playful imagery that still expresses an intense longing for someone long gone.
Of course, the album is also very, very short. Probably too short. I think one or two more solid tracks would have helped this feel much more complete, especially considering that a handful of the songs that did secure a spot on I Used To Go To This Bar aren’t super memorable.
To make it extremely clear: I am aware that sub-20-minutes is the standard for a Joyce Manor LP. I’m not complaining that I Used To Go To This Bar is too short for Joyce Manor, I’m complaining that I don’t think they use their limited time as well as they have in the past. Even the breakneck pace of 40 oz. to Fresno felt more complete than Bar; a full story in a few words. I Used To Go To This Bar feels more, to me, like two EPs that got slapped together. There’s a handful of songs that play on the theme of wistful rearview window gazing, of longing for the past and remembering it, even if it kind of sucked. And then there’s the rest, which aren’t bad or unlistenable–I realllyyyy did not care for the Sugar Ray energy of “Well, Whatever It Was”, though–but when you’re working with such a short tracklist (and literally very short tracks), the thread connecting everything needs to feel strong and sturdy to make the general thesis of the album come through at hyperspeed. Otherwise, this is the result: some great songs interspersed with some middling ones, leaving for an unsatisfying exit.
Speaking of the exit track, however, we have to talk about “Grey Guitar”. My fucking god. It’s been a while since a song beat the fuck out of me lyrically like this. “Grey Guitar” manages to capture the uniquely unsettling feeling that something, somewhere, with someone you love, is terribly wrong, with no proof to speak of. Anyone who suffers from any kind of mental illness can probably pinpoint this formless dread, but to hear it spelled out so clearly in a fucking pop punk song really cracked open my ribcage and rooted around for my heart.
The problem is that, while “Gray Guitar” is a perfect ending number and likely the strongest on the record, the brevity of the album as a whole becomes very clear when you’re suddenly just done with it a scant 19 minutes later. I actually think I just sat there in my car and went ‘oh, shit–that’s it.’ Some people might think that sitting in stunned silence left wanting more is a good thing, but I don’t really think it works here. I think it feels like driving off a cliff on accident as opposed to an intentionally-done emotional rug pull. Oh well.
