Throughout the 2010s, the group’s output felt like a constant struggle to transcend the instant arena-rock success of debut album The Big Roar, a near-perfect fusion of massive guitar riffs and even more massive choruses, all anchored by singer Ritzy Bryan’s joyful, triumphalist vocals, eloquent and abstract in equal measure. 2013's Wolf’s Law doubled down on the formula, a mostly successful attempt to recreate the same magic that proved the band’s debut chops were no fluke. But Hitch strayed further afield musically without adding much in return, a clear case of growing pains that never found a sturdy outlet. By 2018, however, it seemed a creative rebirth was unfolding, as Aaarth incorporated a heady stew of new influences and techniques into the band’s riff-rock bombast, resulting in an album that arguably possessed less lighters-in-the-air catharsis, but an admirable transition into a slightly different kind of band, one just as home with off-kilter grooves as four-on-the-floor anthems.

Which is what makes Into The Blue such an odd beast of a record. While there are some diverse flourishes—and two songs based in deep acoustic-guitar balladry—it’s an undeniable return to early form, albeit with the clear sensibility of a band struggling to again find the magic in the formula. “I won’t go back to nothing,” Bryan sings on “Back To Nothing,” a masterful shoegaze epic that nonetheless gives voice to the musical uncertainty captured by the album: “Let this end…there’s no meeting in the middle, now,” goes one repeated line, and it comes across for all the world like she’s addressing the band’s rejection of anything too adventurous, instead diligently drilling down on the pulsing hard-rock rhythms and riffs on which The Joy Formidable made its bones.

Into The Blue - Joy Formidable - 2021 release from the Welsh alt-rock band.