Album Review: Djo – The Crux
3 min read
Joe Keery is widely recognised for his acting (Steve Harrington in Stranger Things) rather than his music – nonetheless, this hasn’t stopped him from steadily carving out a distinct musical identity under the moniker Djo. Following previous releases Twenty Twenty (2019) and Decide (2022), The Crux, released via AWAL Recordings and (once more) co-produced with Adam Thien, marks a significant evolution in his artistic journey. Delving into themes experienced through a breakup and a coast-to-coast move, Keery hoped to produce an introspective, yet sonically adventurous album, using a fictional hotel as a façade to help shape the emotion (side note: Keery’s friends and family contribute vocals through the album, which adds a nice personal touch of which cannot help but ingratiate you to the artist and the album before a note is heard). Let’s jump right in.
Starting off strong, Lonesome Is a State of Mind has a real US indie electro pop feel to it, and this continues through to Basic Being Basic – great synth use, intertwined with guitars and drums. Gives a real late 1980’s indie feel to it, and, on reflection, is my favourite track on the album. Moving away from the synths, and toward a more mainstream rock track, Link is a fantastic upbeat track, and again gives me the feels of 1980’s pop rock, while Potion takes the tempo down, clear influences of Fleetwood Mac and the later 1970’s country-tinged rock from the USA. Returning to the earlier 1980’s synth pop rock themes, Delete Ya should be the big success from the album– great synth use, intertwined with guitars and drums, and a clear influence from the Cars. Egg is a solid track, a little down tempo with a feel of a rock opera track to the construction, with great lyrics to boot.
The next few tracks are clearly influenced by the greats – Melancholy would be the word to describe Fly, which is clearly influenced by Led Zepplin’s Rain Song, while I could cite four different Beatles tracks which heavily influenced Charlie’s Garden, and you can hear the Cars running though Gap Tooth Smile – all three tracks fantastic homages to great bands, but a little too influenced by them, for me.
Entering the latter stages, Golden Line is a lovely down tempo piano-led track, with a hint of Todd Rundgren’s Torch Song or 1970’s Paul McCartney about it, whilst penultimate track Back on You has choral harmonies leading to some great boogie woogie guitar rock. Ending with the title track, Crux feels like the closing credits to a film – an air of finality to proceedings, not sad, but grateful for what has come before – a fantastic closer.
The Crux is a quality album – Keery is now officially more than an actor playing at being in a band. There were some very clear high points: Basic Being Basic and Delete Ya are tracks of the highest calibre; Crux is a perfect closing track for where this artist is. Even the ‘low points’ aren’t bad per se, just a bit tribute band-esque. This album is so close to being in the select group of ‘whole album downloaded’ – I will have to give it another (flor the 8th time) listen, but at the least the aforementioned three tracks are certs to be added to the 2025 playlist. Go listen to this, you will not regret it.
