Spread Joy have never seemed particularly interested in separating thought from movement. The Chicago post-punk band turns that refusal into a governing principle on ‘III,’ making a record where the brain is constantly trying to catch up with the body. The record’s short duration means its ideas flash by with the speed of overheard conversation and a thought arriving three seconds too late. It is funny, quick-witted, physical and gloriously impatient.
Coming in at under a minute and half, “Abolish Chance” opens the album at a flat-out sprint. The title sounds philosophical, but the music won’t sit still long enough to contemplate it. Chance is an abstract concept; the body, meanwhile, has somewhere to be. That collision between intellectual play and kinetic urgency is central to Spread Joy and this album’s appeal. “Vindicated By” follows with another compact burst, taking the language of argument and converting it into rhythmic propulsion. The band has a remarkable instinct for compression.
“(Why Can’t) I” is where the existential eye-rolling starts. That parenthetical makes the title sound like a sentence abandoned halfway, and it’s a perfect fit for this band, who always seem to walk into their own songs already arguing with themselves. The question is less important than the velocity with which it is asked. Then comes “Iambic Pentameter,” one of the album’s most revealing titles. A strict poetic meter lands in the middle of a record designed to set your limbs twitching on their own. Spread Joy knows that language has been about rhythm all along. Their wit is contemporary, their arrangements are efficient, and their rhythmic instincts are so tightly synchronized that the music can seem almost innate.
“Pygmalion” stirs up a lot at once in how easy it is to fall in love with something you’ve created or imagined. Spread Joy fit all of it into less than sixty seconds, which is either impressively efficient or slightly absurd. “Avoiding the Issue” dodges nothing. They tackle the problem head-on with repetition, rhythm, and quick flashes of melody. Big arrangements aren’t needed to get things moving, and the tight limits only seem to make them sharper. Each part walks in knowing exactly when it’s time to go.
“Cautionary Tale” introduces another literary phrase, but Spread Joy refuses the expected solemnity. The song seems aware that warnings are often ignored because, well, they sound like warnings. Better to make the lesson entertaining. Even better, make it something you can dance to. It’s a sly bit of smarts, really, the notion that an idea sticks harder when it was fun to run into. “Left the House” shifts the focus toward something wonderfully mundane. Leaving the house sounds like the smallest possible narrative event, yet on a Spread Joy record it becomes another opportunity to examine movement itself. The band repeatedly turns ordinary gestures into occasions for rhythm, and it works. Their music makes physical action feel not only like expression but also a form of thought.
“Olli Oxen Frei” is perhaps the album’s most cryptic title, and its unfamiliarity adds another wrinkle to the record’s linguistic games. Language is more than a delivery system for Spread Joy. They love it as noise, as texture, as the odd debris a culture leaves behind. Words can communicate, confuse, amuse and simply feel good to say. Their lyrics embrace that elasticity. The closing “Entrance” is a sly final gesture. After nine songs that have continually propelled the listener forward, Spread Joy finishes by naming the threshold itself. While an entrance usually signals an arrival, this plays like a prompt to begin again. The tracks are so heavily compressed that when the record finally cuts out, it leaves an absolute vacuum. Seventeen minutes have passed, yet the nervous energy remains.
‘III’ is incredibly refreshing because it refuses to let a short runtime limit its scale. Despite its brief running time, the record’s ambition is enormous. It’s loaded with literary nods, twisty rhythms, and hooks that stick the landing. The band even teases itself for being so clever. They seem to know that a curious mind is at its most powerful when it’s having fun.
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