The Joy of Painting has shown through their two previous records, Lighten Up and Asterisk, that they tend to veer toward some fairly heavy reflection as it concerns their lyrics, which are so effective and resonant because it’s sometimes difficult to tell whether they’re being tongue-in-cheek, completely earnest or somewhere between the two. Tender Age, which dropped May 21 on South Division, is no different. The seven-track follow-up to 2012’s Lighten Up, The Joy of Painting’s newest EP fixates upon the concept of age, growing up, being too old to be young and too young to be old. It’s serious shit, but just as they did with their previous recordings, The Joy of Painting pump their songs so ridiculously full of high-voltage sonic boom, they can’t help but stand out even among the sunniest of Nashville indie poppers. Though The Joy of Painting’s lyrics imply they’re going to be pensive, moody or apprehensive, at least they’re going to do it as loudly, and with as many bright and shiny musical overtones as they can possibly manage.
From the get-go with the hooky “High Definitions,” Tender Age is like a coiled spring vibrant with guitars that dig in, in garage-punk fashion, while the percussion and frontman Garreth Spinn’s vocals say indie-pop. The opener sets the stage for the pleasant invitations of “Dontchu Wanna,” which asks if you want to talk straight in a good mood and get laid, make love or whatever it’s called today. This is probably one of the album’s best, speckled with droll introspection—Dontchu wanna/Make plans, make vows/Put on a record, play it loud/’Cause it feels so good at a tender age—and unpretentious insight: Nothing’s more pure than correcting your wrongs/Correcting your wrongs to make it right.
“Ghost” is a well-placed leveler about the memory of a former lover and her long-goneness that haunts the singer, who’s stuck between wanting to look back and needing to move forward: There’s a ghost in my house/She doesn’t let me sleep/There’s a part of me/That doesn’t want no peace. And again contemplation of age and time spring up as the album closes with “I Didn’t Think,” when Spinn sings, I know I’m young/But I feel so old/My ankles click/My eyes roll/I don’t wanna be bitter/I want a heart of gold.
The Joy of Painting could write about a dumpster on their next record, whatever; their songwriting is good, but it’s their instrumental resiliency that makes them irresistible. They’ve got the garage-rock touch that easily gives them a place in Nashville, but they’ve tenderized it with something of their own, and far more rare, which is a really good sense of pop music. Like the albums that have come before this, Tender Age is just more proof of it.
