“It’s a Wonder we had Such a Good Season” is the debut release of Ben Joseph, the explosive corrosive force behind mellow island punks Exodus Over and local indie legends Art & Ransom. The album, which stretches on 2 CD’s, for nearly 100 minutes, features acoustic longings, electronic city-dweller-sun-in-your-eyes jams, Balkan-inspired accordion-driven waltzes, expansive string breaks, one awesome hardcore scream, and Beach Boys-esque backup vocal swells. (Say “backup vocal swells” ten times fast). These walls of sound lay the foundation for Joseph’s sarcastic, yet heartfelt and honest, lyrical style – a style that produces bitter, violent love songs, subtle reflections on the zeitgeist of American youth, and ironically emotional looks at the painfully overdramatic conflicts of adolescence.

Born and raised on a small peninsula on the western edge of Emperor Norton’s United States, Ben Joseph, or Efrain Hyago Guillermo Navarro del Playa, as he is known in the more sparsely inhabited areas west of the bay, spe