Joshua Lloyd is a British musician, songwriter, MC and producer from London who’s just released his first full length album, I’m Wasted, Now Welcome to the Show. It’s an incredibly vulnerable and moving record, exploring thematic such as mental health, heartbreak and addiction from a very candid point of view. Joshua told us that these songs were inspired by his own life before getting clean, seven years ago.
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“The inspiration behind the entire project, to be blunt, was years and years of pain heartache, and hope amongst addiction. It tells the story of my life in sporadic flashes up to about 7 years ago when I finally got clean, stopped chasing enablers and love from the wrong woman, and found love within myself”.
Joshua Lloyd
I’m Wasted, Now Welcome to the Show is an album featuring a fairly unique sense of dynamics and an incredibly interesting production. Heavily based on the emo pop-punk from the late 90s and early 00s, but also making an excellent use of hip-hop influences and structures. The result is simply breathtaking, you never know where the songs are going to lead you to and this keeps you at the edge of your seat, completely enthralled by the sounds.
Things are kicked off with “Title Track”, a gorgeous song that starts with a slow tempo before exploding into Joshua rapping over sparse guitar chords that culminate in an epic chorus reminiscent of Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”. And it’s so good, every single thing about this track just works perfectly from start to finish. From then on, we hear Joshua exploring these dynamics more and more, getting even more vulnerable on his lyrics and his personal relationships – both with other people as well as with addiction itself.
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Next we get to “Heartless”, the album’s first single which was released back in 2020 and got a beautiful acoustic rendition and its own music video. The stripped back performance really highlights the vulnerability of the song, sounding even more heart breaking and urgent than the original studio version. The simplicity of the video, with nothing but Joshua accompanied by an acoustic guitar, really comes to show how intense these feelings truly are.
Over the next tracks, we can feel how important this music feels like for him. There’s so much emotion and feeling behind any and everything that is happening, you can’t help but pay attention and delve into your own feelings.
Carrying on with impeccable melodies and grand lyricism, Joshua tells his story unfiltered and dives deep into the escapism, alienation and restlessness that come from drug abuse. With lyrics like ‘I don’t know where I’m going, I’ve been this way since fifteen‘ from “IDKWIG” to ‘I’m that guy in the background, sitting on his own at a party getting drunk – if I’m invisible, that’s fine‘ on “Socialite”, Joshua manages to make his point across in a very relatable and universal manner, like very few.
I’m Wasted, Now Welcome to the Show is a remarkable collection of songs, an album that isn’t afraid to show the darker parts of oneself. It tells the story without glossing over it, the highs and lows both met with the same intensity because it was all real and hard to get through. The explorations of anxiety and mental health issues are displayed front and center, over a genre-defying production and outstanding vocals. Joshua Lloyd made of his debut album one that feels like he’s telling you what has been happening since you last spoke, with the same intimacy and vulnerability you would talk to a best friend.
What’s best about this album is that even amidst all of this chaos and struggles, there’s a hopefulness to Joshua’s vocals – no matter how dark it got, he is always searching for the light and how to get out of this cycle. And he does it, as illustrated by album closer “Weirdo” that ends the album in a surprisingly positive note. Joshua Lloyd’s first full length is one that takes you on a journey through real and complicated emotions and situations and does it with endless grace and will.
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Joshua Lloyd’s vulnerability and strength shines through on debut album “I’m Wasted, Now Welcome to the Show”.
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— Jpgchief (@Jpgchief) February 7, 2024
Don’t forget to support this project and follow Joshua Lloyd on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, Apple Music, and Spotify. If you enjoy this music and can provide monetary support, you might consider downloading it on Bandcamp.
You can find it in the following Playlists: Less Than 1,000 Followers, Fresh Singles, Indie Only, Alterindie State Of Mind, 12 New Songs This Week, Unknown but Essentials!, Sickest & Dopest, and Only Punk.
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FOR MORE DEBUT ALBUMS REVIEWED CLICK HERE
the center didn’t hold