Leaving things never has a natural conclusion. Leaving things means unresolved relationships, passion projects and bucket lists. And maybe, just maybe, that place, or person, or thing left behind is incomplete now. Maybe, the feeling is mutual. And maybe indie folk band Joytrip is leaving state, like their album title suggests, or maybe they are in a metaphorical state of leaving matters of the soul and heart behind.
Regardless of the four-piece Iowa City group’s motives, a feeling of restlessness and yearning cuts through their contemplative but sunny second EP. The beginning of each track feels like it’s bursting onto the scene, awakening and wiping the sleep out of the disrupted silence, elevating the listener to a sense of hyper-aware clarity.
This clarity of place starts immediately with “Days Like This,” offering the ambience of chirping birds and rustling leaves. Buttery, reverbed guitar takes over, oozing, melting and slathering onto the senses. There’s a sense of blissful contentedness, but that nagging yearning lingers in the outro. “I need you / Do you need me too?” the vocalists croon. A Western-tinged vocal howling hangs on the end of the question, thick in the song’s sudden quiet, that yelp of desperation ultimately unanswered. No matter, the narrator is happy to just be, at least, until the day’s over.
As the sun rises on a new day, the restlessness of the EP begins to seep in with “I Wanna Stay.” Beginning with the incessant ticking of a clock, gloomy guitar tones and a percussive thump throughout that rattles and shakes, there’s a sense of uneasiness. “I wanna stay, but I’ve been here so long,” according to the vocals. The inner conflict rings louder.
“Juniper Lane” continues to pull that thread of place, but with a sweeping genre shift to all-out ’90s retro country sounds, including crystal clear vocals, bathed in layered, honeyed guitar fingerpicking. “The road is calling me,” like many a troubadour of songs past, but to Wyoming and Yellowstone instead of West Virginia or Colorado. The call of the West is clearly strong for Joytrip; they’re rather partial to a mountainscape on the covers of their singles, with not an Iowa cornfield in sight.
There’s a finality of home in the EP’s last meandering auditory dilemma, with the closing track “Life’s Not Dire.” There are shouts to Iowa City: “it’s sketchy dives, Lake Macbride,” (I hope sketchy is used affectionately here, and I selfishly hope the dive in question is Foxhead.) There are calls to less grandiose moments spent in nature, of backyards and tents. And yet in its return to the present, questions still loom: “Are you ready to leave?” asks Joytrip. And just like the album began, the listener and the narrator don’t get an answer. leaving state captures the feeling of unresolved doubts in a fully realized four-track journey.
This article was originally published in Little Village’s June 2025 issue.
