Joshua Lloyd is a pop-punk musician based in our capital city of London, who also was the EMM Unsigned Artist of 2020, showing a great deal of promise for his future! If that isn’t enough, his May EP, Sick When I Wake Up, makes for an amazing listen!
By Jane Howkins
White Lies kicks things off nicely and sounds very energetic, making for a wonderful start to this seminal EP. The riffs are fast and there’s a chugging sensation, as well as the little guitar lines that run through the chorus. However, the track is also rather catchy, showing the pop side of Joshua’s music. His voice is perfectly suited to this genre, sounding very emotive on the breakdown towards the end.
Suffocating starts out a little slower, showing a slightly softer side to Joshua’s music, before the beat kicks in. The percussion has an almost hip-hop-esque sound at times, adding another unique element to the song, however the thing that really impressed me about this track are the flowing guitar melodies, showing just how skilled this musician really is!
Unlucky has quite a depressing feel, with the lyrics being about addiction, sobriety and other such things, although the lyrical content just makes the music feel more real. It’s another track that features hip-hop percussion at times, although it’s still definitely a pop-punk tune, and it’s probably the most emotive song on this entire EP!
Title track Sick When I Wake Up is the penultimate song, and it’s quite different from the other tracks here, as it features a female vocal line, as well as Joshua’s amazing vocals. This adds a nice variety to the song, and wow, can those vocals soar! At times, both male and female vocals work alongside each other, singing harmoniously in a beautiful way.
Time ends things nicely, being one of the poppier tracks on the EP. It starts with a pretty little guitar motif, as the drums collide over the top of the rest of the music. There’s a real poetry to Joshua’s lyrics which is displayed really well on this song, sounding very heartfelt indeed. Just listen to that chorus and tell me you don’t feel something!
Sick When I Wake Up is a cracking EP from Joshua Lloyd, showing that pop-punk truly isn’t dead! It’s great to hear that classic pop-punk style being utilised so well again!
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