It seems mighty odd to deliberately title a record after a tiny residential neighborhood founded by a group of employees from Kodak (yes, the same Kodak brand that makes all those polaroid cameras you and friends like to mess around with on weekends), but then again, as you’ll come to see, Joywave are probably perpetually engraved somewhere in the 1980’s. Although the Rochester, NY indietronica group have struggled to leap out towards a major audience with a sparse supply of recordings dating as far as January of last year, but among those whom the band has been able to touch, practically all would agree that there’s a fundamental cog whirring inside the band that feels almost directly plucked out of the 80’s with the elegant grace of a Korg synthesizer. Though their latest venture, “Koda Vista,” might lean more on the side of an EP for many listeners due to its puny timespan of just over 25 minutes, but regardless of its technical definition, the album is Joywave’s first real chance to perform in front of spotlight and display their musical portfolio to the attentive music fans of the world. How fitting then that “Koda Vista” opens with a softly strummed guitar melange of reverb and chorus effects softly evolving into dreamily plucked riffs all on top of a smeared gelatin-like ambience that’s drenched in a spacey organ chord progression on the instrumental “A.M.” Even though the record does unravel from there into a more indie power pop vibe that channels contemporaries such as Foster the People nicely, really all you need to gather about the group can be obtained in the first few seconds of the entire album. Due to this obsession with honoring the 80’s that is combined with a futuristic indie pop approach that takes the shape of brisk guitar flicks and adrenaline rush synthesizers over series of “Woo-ooh“‘s and the Brandon Flowers-like voice of frontman Dan Armbruster on “Golden State,” “Koda Vista” can feel slightly exhilarating at times, but for the most part remains rather one-dimensional. Although the soothing keyboard haze can feel particularly comfortable and relaxing on tracks such as “Anemone,” it can become so clichéd that you have to wonder how much effort actually went into fabricating those dancehall beats that seem to mimic early electro acts like Underground back when the disco was still the mode of the day. The sad reality for the Joywave boys is that you can’t just make an album that pays a tremendous ode to the past and claim that it must logically be something of value; in fact, leaving us with this half-baked primal state of 80’s dance fused with indie rock can even seem borderline embarrassing with the remarkable usage of tackiness here and there. However, there is one element that saves “Koda Vista” from a clear-cut failure: the group’s incredible catchiness in their music. While you may start to giggle from time to time during the 1-2 punch of “Golden State” and “True Grit,” there’s no denying that with a solid bass leading the onslaught of electronics and guitars both times, there’s a slightly irresistible pleasure that especially makes a move during Joywave’s chorus for brief instances of euphoria that’s pounded on by the cheesy synthesizers despite their kitsch paint-job. Another wise decision from the band was to not pour on their flood of ablaze electropop antics. Thanks to the little spurt that “Koda Vista” comes in, besides the seemingly endless “Smokestacks,” you’re not overwhelmed with Joywave’s nostalgic adoration and instead presented with a quick hit that avoids the crash that lengthier records usually hit at around the half-hour mark. So while there may not be much substance behind “Koda Vista,” at least the boys at Joywave aren’t trying to force feed it down our throats and labeling it art; it’s just a fun little mess of a record, so don’t pretend to be interested if you blatantly know that you’d prefer something much more mentally challenging. Either way, “Koda Vista” will be a nice addition to your collection of indie pop madness that you’ve been secretly unwinding to guiltily, but there just isn’t enough foundation and padding behind the record to even out with the banal instrumentation that Joywave were incredibly proud, despite its resemblance to something their drunk uncle used to dance to in packed greasy clubs before they were even born.

Key Tracks: “Golden State”, “True Grit” and “Anemone”