Hello Joyce — Couch Thoughts I’m gonna go ahead and say it. This fucking record from Tampa dream-poppers Hello Joyce is sparkly, and I love it. For 27 minutes, bassist Jared Hanlon, multi-instrumentalist Kyle D. Muti, drummer Nicolas Remy, guitarist Cameron Grant tap friends to bring sax and trumpet to a record that sometimes celebrates sloth (“Getting Fatter”) or pens tear-jerking odes to loyalty (“I’m Your Hound”), but always does it with a big fat wurlitzer-sounding paint brush that leaves everything it touches shimmering in its wake. “I want to live outside myself. I want to live with heart,” the band sings on Couch Thoughts’ title track. You are, boys, and it sounds too damn good.
See a full recap of the year's best local albums in the new issue of Creative Loafing Tampa. Check out the full list via cltampa.com/music. Call your local record store to see if it has this release.
This article appears in Dec 21-28, 2017.
