Joyce Manor - I Used To Go To This Bar

By MB

“I Used to Go to This Bar” isn’t Joyce Manor reinventing themselves. They’ve never needed to. They’ve always known exactly who they are. What this album does is lock into a feeling they’ve been circling for years and finally hit dead on.

When I listen to it, I don’t just hear nostalgia. I feel that specific ache—the conversations you didn’t push further, the people you should’ve talked to longer, the moments you thought you’d have time to revisit. You don’t. Life moves. Things close. Bars shut down. People drift. You can’t control any of that. What you can control is how you sit with it afterward. This record lives in that space.

It carries that college energy without sounding juvenile. It feels like being young and convinced you missed everything, then getting older and realizing you didn’t miss it—you just lived it the only way you could. I don’t hear regret here. I hear recognition. I hear someone finally saying the words they couldn’t quite write down before.

The storytelling on this album stands up with anything I’ve heard. Not just in their catalog—period. It’s tight, it’s intentional, and it never wastes a line. Every track pushes forward. Every line lands with purpose.

By the end, they don’t chase reinvention. They don’t posture. They just tell the truth. And that honesty is what makes this album hit as hard as it does.