Harborcoat - Joy Is Elusive - LP/CD
Tracklist:
1. Help Me Out Somehow
2. Transit Town
3. Go To Sleep
4. Edwardsburg
5. New Dawn Comes
6. Joy Is Elusive
7. Help Me Out Somehow
8. Hear Me, I’m Courageous
9. Things I Should Have Done
10. Tightrope Wire
11. Where The River Bends
12. Never Made It Home
The colored vinyl version features seafoam blue vinyl pressed at 140 grams. LP is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The Black LP is also 140 grams and is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The CD version comes in an eco-friendly wallet design and includes a six panel insert with lyrics for all twelve songs.
This page is for physical versions of ‘Joy Is Elusive”. To purchase the digital version, please visit our Bandcamp page.
Harborcoat specialize in short stories with chords. The lyrics are novelistic and almost standalone pieces rife with emotive and well-crafted narratives. The band name is pulled froman early R.E.M. gem, and the music brims with nods to Matthew’s heroes. The songs recall thecrunchy power pop and harmonies of Teenage Fanclub; the introspection and melodicstorytelling of Billy Bragg; and sprinkled in are moments of 80’s esque Brit-Pop or working-classanthems. These influences, however, do not define the record, but are they are merely a strand of DNA in Harborcoat’s collective musical helix.
The songs on Joy Is Elusive are buoyant and energetic and are a powerful juxtaposition to theweighty lyric content. “I wanted there to be a sense of joy and excitement even though thelyrical themes are often terribly dark. There was a direct effort to play to that old maxim of ‘beautiful melodies telling me terrible things,’” Matthew admits. He continues: “On this record I wanted to write more intently about all of our unseen struggles and the baggage we travel with each day. There is a greater thread lyrically and musically rooted within the themes of the album and the fictional town in which they occur. As much as I cringe at the idea of a concept record, this is a record with a pretty clearly defined concept.”
The 12-song album is a cohesive and conceptually immersive collection that warrants a full album listening experience. That said, select record standouts include “Transit Town,” the title track, and “Where The River Bends.” “Transit Town” is a power-pop anthem with Who-style ringing guitars and a rich tapestry of sing-along harmony vocals. The song’s sugar rush is offset by the bummer of the fleeting nature of relationships in a college town. “The story here is of a self-contained world in a mid-sized industrial city not on an upswing where one person comes into town, they partner with someone for a period of time, and then move on, and that other person is stuck and doesn’t want to be where they are,” Matthew shares. This sentiment is epitomized by the lyric: This city is just a stepping stone/And so I guess am I/Everybody else has flown/I’ve got nowhere to fly.
The deeply emotive piano ballad, “Joy Is Elusive,” is a character-driven piece about a mentally ill sibling who does a stint at a state hospital, but is later returned to his family and they have to find a way to build a life together. The song is filled with poignant scene-setting lyrics such as: We picked you up in Traverse City, scars across your arms/Drove along the country roads, you stared out at the farms/Asked you twice if you were hungry you simply shook your head/We inquired if you were better this was all you said. The dynamic and imaginatively arranged literate rocker, “Where The River Bends,” paints a powerful picture of the terror of getting what you want.
The album was tracked at Matthew’s family cabin. Before the sessions began, his father died suddenly, and Matthew thought to cancel, but his family and friends convinced him to proceed with the sessions. “That week of recording was the first time in four weeks that I had managed to find any degree of happiness or hope,” he recalls. “It was cathartic, it was beautiful, and it was the perfect distraction.”
Tracklist:
1. Help Me Out Somehow
2. Transit Town
3. Go To Sleep
4. Edwardsburg
5. New Dawn Comes
6. Joy Is Elusive
7. Help Me Out Somehow
8. Hear Me, I’m Courageous
9. Things I Should Have Done
10. Tightrope Wire
11. Where The River Bends
12. Never Made It Home
The colored vinyl version features seafoam blue vinyl pressed at 140 grams. LP is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The Black LP is also 140 grams and is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The CD version comes in an eco-friendly wallet design and includes a six panel insert with lyrics for all twelve songs.
This page is for physical versions of ‘Joy Is Elusive”. To purchase the digital version, please visit our Bandcamp page.
Harborcoat specialize in short stories with chords. The lyrics are novelistic and almost standalone pieces rife with emotive and well-crafted narratives. The band name is pulled froman early R.E.M. gem, and the music brims with nods to Matthew’s heroes. The songs recall thecrunchy power pop and harmonies of Teenage Fanclub; the introspection and melodicstorytelling of Billy Bragg; and sprinkled in are moments of 80’s esque Brit-Pop or working-classanthems. These influences, however, do not define the record, but are they are merely a strand of DNA in Harborcoat’s collective musical helix.
The songs on Joy Is Elusive are buoyant and energetic and are a powerful juxtaposition to theweighty lyric content. “I wanted there to be a sense of joy and excitement even though thelyrical themes are often terribly dark. There was a direct effort to play to that old maxim of ‘beautiful melodies telling me terrible things,’” Matthew admits. He continues: “On this record I wanted to write more intently about all of our unseen struggles and the baggage we travel with each day. There is a greater thread lyrically and musically rooted within the themes of the album and the fictional town in which they occur. As much as I cringe at the idea of a concept record, this is a record with a pretty clearly defined concept.”
The 12-song album is a cohesive and conceptually immersive collection that warrants a full album listening experience. That said, select record standouts include “Transit Town,” the title track, and “Where The River Bends.” “Transit Town” is a power-pop anthem with Who-style ringing guitars and a rich tapestry of sing-along harmony vocals. The song’s sugar rush is offset by the bummer of the fleeting nature of relationships in a college town. “The story here is of a self-contained world in a mid-sized industrial city not on an upswing where one person comes into town, they partner with someone for a period of time, and then move on, and that other person is stuck and doesn’t want to be where they are,” Matthew shares. This sentiment is epitomized by the lyric: This city is just a stepping stone/And so I guess am I/Everybody else has flown/I’ve got nowhere to fly.
The deeply emotive piano ballad, “Joy Is Elusive,” is a character-driven piece about a mentally ill sibling who does a stint at a state hospital, but is later returned to his family and they have to find a way to build a life together. The song is filled with poignant scene-setting lyrics such as: We picked you up in Traverse City, scars across your arms/Drove along the country roads, you stared out at the farms/Asked you twice if you were hungry you simply shook your head/We inquired if you were better this was all you said. The dynamic and imaginatively arranged literate rocker, “Where The River Bends,” paints a powerful picture of the terror of getting what you want.
The album was tracked at Matthew’s family cabin. Before the sessions began, his father died suddenly, and Matthew thought to cancel, but his family and friends convinced him to proceed with the sessions. “That week of recording was the first time in four weeks that I had managed to find any degree of happiness or hope,” he recalls. “It was cathartic, it was beautiful, and it was the perfect distraction.”
Tracklist:
1. Help Me Out Somehow
2. Transit Town
3. Go To Sleep
4. Edwardsburg
5. New Dawn Comes
6. Joy Is Elusive
7. Help Me Out Somehow
8. Hear Me, I’m Courageous
9. Things I Should Have Done
10. Tightrope Wire
11. Where The River Bends
12. Never Made It Home
The colored vinyl version features seafoam blue vinyl pressed at 140 grams. LP is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The Black LP is also 140 grams and is housed in a poly-lined inner sleeve, and comes with full color gatefold artwork including full album lyrics and a heavy matte style full color jacket.
The CD version comes in an eco-friendly wallet design and includes a six panel insert with lyrics for all twelve songs.
This page is for physical versions of ‘Joy Is Elusive”. To purchase the digital version, please visit our Bandcamp page.
Harborcoat specialize in short stories with chords. The lyrics are novelistic and almost standalone pieces rife with emotive and well-crafted narratives. The band name is pulled froman early R.E.M. gem, and the music brims with nods to Matthew’s heroes. The songs recall thecrunchy power pop and harmonies of Teenage Fanclub; the introspection and melodicstorytelling of Billy Bragg; and sprinkled in are moments of 80’s esque Brit-Pop or working-classanthems. These influences, however, do not define the record, but are they are merely a strand of DNA in Harborcoat’s collective musical helix.
The songs on Joy Is Elusive are buoyant and energetic and are a powerful juxtaposition to theweighty lyric content. “I wanted there to be a sense of joy and excitement even though thelyrical themes are often terribly dark. There was a direct effort to play to that old maxim of ‘beautiful melodies telling me terrible things,’” Matthew admits. He continues: “On this record I wanted to write more intently about all of our unseen struggles and the baggage we travel with each day. There is a greater thread lyrically and musically rooted within the themes of the album and the fictional town in which they occur. As much as I cringe at the idea of a concept record, this is a record with a pretty clearly defined concept.”
The 12-song album is a cohesive and conceptually immersive collection that warrants a full album listening experience. That said, select record standouts include “Transit Town,” the title track, and “Where The River Bends.” “Transit Town” is a power-pop anthem with Who-style ringing guitars and a rich tapestry of sing-along harmony vocals. The song’s sugar rush is offset by the bummer of the fleeting nature of relationships in a college town. “The story here is of a self-contained world in a mid-sized industrial city not on an upswing where one person comes into town, they partner with someone for a period of time, and then move on, and that other person is stuck and doesn’t want to be where they are,” Matthew shares. This sentiment is epitomized by the lyric: This city is just a stepping stone/And so I guess am I/Everybody else has flown/I’ve got nowhere to fly.
The deeply emotive piano ballad, “Joy Is Elusive,” is a character-driven piece about a mentally ill sibling who does a stint at a state hospital, but is later returned to his family and they have to find a way to build a life together. The song is filled with poignant scene-setting lyrics such as: We picked you up in Traverse City, scars across your arms/Drove along the country roads, you stared out at the farms/Asked you twice if you were hungry you simply shook your head/We inquired if you were better this was all you said. The dynamic and imaginatively arranged literate rocker, “Where The River Bends,” paints a powerful picture of the terror of getting what you want.
The album was tracked at Matthew’s family cabin. Before the sessions began, his father died suddenly, and Matthew thought to cancel, but his family and friends convinced him to proceed with the sessions. “That week of recording was the first time in four weeks that I had managed to find any degree of happiness or hope,” he recalls. “It was cathartic, it was beautiful, and it was the perfect distraction.”