JOSEPH slash self-doubt with The Sun, but it’s not bright enough

Right now, so-called girl groups like JOSEPH are in. It’s as simple as that. From HAIM to boygenius to MUNA, the power of united women making indie music is at an all time high. JOSEPH leans into that energy on their fifth album to date, harnessing the warming rays of the sun and channeling it into their harmonies.

But where the vocals themselves are bold and untethered, the lyrics stay tied too tightly to conventional temptations, offering vacant choruses like “in these four walls I feel alone and small / till I see there's only three more hours till the sun.” There’s an overall impersonal feeling present in many of the tracks lyric-wise, veering at times toward the blind optimism of Christian pop rock.

The sisters shared that The Sun was heavily influenced by the conversations they had with their therapists. It’s quite easy to tell, too - self-help is woven into the record’s DNA, perhaps a bit too blatantly. Empowerment is by no means a sin, nor is it unnecessary, but when it’s omnipresent as a central theme in every song, it can grow tiresome.

It is, suffice it to say, a well-mixed and relatively diverse-sounding album, flowing from beginning to end with a manner of ease. The catchiest of tracks have been shoved to the front. “Waves Crash” is a cathartic opener, showcasing one of the only moments the band lets loose the floodgates and pours out everything they’ve got during the second half. The title track itself, whilst suffering from mid-2010s-sounding instrumentation, houses the profound mantra “I thought I was the light switch you turned on / but I am the sun.” And the glimmering “Fireworks” continues the streak as the folk-pop stand-out. But beyond there, the memorable moments are few and far between.

For some, The Sun is exactly what they might need when they’re in a dark place, pun intended. For others, it’s too run-of-the-mill, too uplifting in a way that appears predictable or plastic. By the end of the record, there’s a sentiment that remains, almost as if JOSEPH did the exact opposite of Icarus when it comes to the sun - they didn’t fly close enough to it.