The Joy Formidable: Live @ The Portland Arms, Cambridge

In the opening of his classic novel Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy writes, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Leo Tolstoy is dead fucking wrong. In the fifty-person capacity bombshelter venue Portland Arms, The Joy Formidable draws us into the fold of a family that is happy in its own uniquely dysfunctional way.

Lead vocalist/guitarist Ritzy Bryan and bassist/vocalist Rhydian Dafydd rule this full house as matriarch and patriarch. Hoppity-happy drummer Matt Thomas doubles as the quippy grandfather seated in the corner, who cheekily yells for returns to focus when Mum and Dad need to cut the crap. And we in the audience run the gamut as archetypal children - there are: the obedient firstborns, goody two-shoes geeks who spend the whole set recording mummy's every move with point-and-shoots; the obnoxious teenage 'rebels,' in the form of grown man-boys who have formed a squash pit and don't hesitate at opportunities to grab and push the other kids; the patient middle children, who have learned to benefit more from observing than scene-making. Now take all of these personas and transpose them on a strange blend of older indie kids and football fans, and you have an idea of our idiosyncratic gig genealogy.

Mummy Ritzy is synecdoche for TJF's project - seemingly sweet and twee to those who don't know any better, but a hurricane of fury to those who watch her in her element. She's got a femme blond bob - but disturbingly dishevelled. She's got an unassumingly petite frame, that she hurls around in wide strides whilst absolutely manhandling her guitar. She's got a tiny speaking voice reminiscent of a mouse - a mouse spitting out blasphemies at a cowering cat. We all love Mummy Ritzy very much, but we are a little bit afraid of her bouts of vocal rage and intensely vacant stares that dare us to just try and not do our homework. We dare not.

Mummy Ritzy and Daddy Rhydian are bickering. Most happy families hate it when Mummy and Daddy fight, but we kind of enjoy it. It's at once cute, cold, passive-aggressive, and extremely public. They argue over the sloppily transcribed set list, a mercurial pedal, and how Rhydian is setting it all up to make Ritzy "look like a prick." But then the thunder-pop squalls kick in and Ritzy steps all over Rhydian as she completely upstages him in presence and musicianship. Somehow he seems content to let her do it. As the saying goes, behind every successful frontwoman is a composed and steady bass-lickin' man. We go to Daddy Rhydian when we get into trouble, or when Mummy Ritzy says "no" to a new puppy.

Best of all, the music is good. Really good. Their otherworldly, labyrinthine love-rock recordings that fog up your computer speakers explode live into clarion calls for ripping the extraordinary out of the quotidian haze. The vocals sound a little tired (perhaps from all the quarreling) in comparison to TJF's usual top-notch caliber of live performance, but that doesn't sink this soaring, searing show from the tremendous trio. We're already making t-shirts for the fabulously flawed family reunion.

Live photos by: Laura Cook