Back in 2022, Djo’s synth rock single “End of Beginning,” was everywhere: social media, the radio, grocery stores, malls. It probably helped that this was the same time that Stranger Things Season 4 dropped after a three-year hiatus because Djo is, in fact, the project of Joe Keerey, who plays the big-haired Steve Harrington in the popular Netflix sci-fi show. So there was a lot of hype around Djo around the interwebs and music media, and maybe this is why I didn’t feel compelled to check out the whole album, DECIDE, back in 2022. Fast forward to now, and Djo has just dropped his third album, The Crux, and I have checked it out, and as whole, it’s pretty enjoyable. And it’s not indie rock, which I had in my mind before flipping it on.
Djo has a habit of shifting genres song by song, jumping between some ’80s soft rock, 2000s slacker rock, and straight 70s orchestral pop ala ELO. Besides “Basic Being Basic,” which is definitely at his poppiest but not my real cup of tea, there’s not really a bad song on here. Sure, some of the lyrics are pretty derivative, like on “Link,” but that style, filled with self-referential one-offs is kind of part of The Crux‘s charm. And damn is this album catchy. I hear some bouncy The 1975 influence or even The Knack on “Potion,” which has some nice acoustic slide chops. Keerey has the voice for falsetto, and he really goes for it with some airy harmonies and some backing strings. He’s a guy who clearly loves the classics and knows how to mimic the sounds quite well.
One track that really conveys this is “Charlie’s Garden,” which has the same vibe as Harry Nilsson’s 1971 banger “Gotta Get Up,” and then turns into the falsetto-y chorus, like something from The Beach Boys. There’s still some production flourish with the constant phone call interludes, and some strange mariachi horn section.
So it’s impossible to really separate comparisons between the musical eras on The Crux, and maybe that’s the point? If it gets a younger generation to check out the older influences like The Cars, that’s a win. Djo did the synth-pop/rock thing on DECIDE, so he moved on to other avenues? What’s next? Punk? Soul, Trip-hop?
