Whether it's incorporating a choir straight out of Vince Guaraldi's score for A Charlie Brown Christmas, a guitar line that recalls The Turtles, or a soft moment that recalls Steve Martin and Bernadette Peters' ukulele duet on the beach in The Jerk, Little Joy's self-titled debut pines nostalgically for more innocent times.
Perhaps the most promising project to come out of The Strokes' ongoing hiatus, Little Joy is a breezy project featuring Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, Rodrigo Amarante of Los Hermanos, and newcomer Binki Shapiro. Aptly named for an Echo Park lounge where the band members lived and recorded, Little Joy mixes a refreshing cocktail of concise '60s pop songwriting, Jobim-esque ballads, and just a twist of upbeat Latin folk.
Unlike many retro-leaning bands to surface in the last few years, there's an authentic earnestness Little Joy's music in general, and "The Next Time Around" in particular. Moretti's lyrics, as crooned by Amarante, dispense melancholic missives of lost love while capturing the excitement inherent in tomorrow's promise. When Shapiro muses back in Portuguese, amidst all the swooning vocal harmonies, crisp strums of acoustic guitar and percussive clacking, it's not hard to fall in love with Little Joy, just a little bit.
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