“Million Dollars To Kill Me” successfully positions Joyce Manor as modern guitar music’s answer to Guided By Voices, The band have been churning out likeable blasts of power-pop as quickly as possible and doing it at a remarkably consistent rate. On their fifth album, frontman Barry Johnson has mastered the simple affectations in his lyrics made to be scrawled in teen diaries. Elsewhere, ‘Silly Games’ transposes a yearning Roy Orbison-like melody to a modern indie rock band and ‘Fighting Kangaroo’ is a constant crescendo of an opener.
Of Joyce Manor’s five albums, Million Dollars may be its most cryptically titled. Does it allude to some sort of bounty? Defiance? Survival? The cost of living? The album’s title track doesn’t make it any clearer – in fact, it muddies the waters even further by detailing a demised relationship where, while both parties are still fond of one another, the proverbial writing is on the wall. Truth be told, none of that really matters when it comes down to it. “Million Dollars” is one of the strongest, sharpest songs Joyce Manor has ever written. What’s in a name, anyway?
‘Million Dollars To Kill Me’,Joyce Manor exist as a primordial example of a band growing up gracefully.
The Fat Angel Sings 