Do It Now Foundation Joy Juice EP

Do It Now Foundation

Joy Juice EP

Do It Now Foundation has always marched to a slightly different beat than most of their Austin alt.rock peers, which may be why they've had trouble keeping a drummer since relocating here from Vermont in 1993. It's also made them among the most chronically overlooked and underestimated musicians in a town of one Next Big Thing after another. Where this recent seven-song EP lacks the stylistic variation of 1993's Dig Deep, its on-the-fly production and effortless effervescence shows that, even while marking time, Do It Now has one of the most consistently engaging, artistically challenging sounds around. It's also one of the hardest to pin down. Not angry enough to be punk, slack enough to be indie, or kvelling enough to be emo, Joy Juice is very much its own entity. A brisk, skittery ride past friends ("Skeddie"), scenes ("Death of Cool"), and affirmations ("Powerbaby"), it sucks the listener in from the get-go and packs more charge than a Van der Graaf generator. At just over 25 minutes -- long for a band that still believes in 7-inch singles -- Joy Juice is both a satisfying sampler of the Do It Now aesthetic and a tantalizing stopgap that can't help but leave you wanting more.