Joanna Gruesome

As legend would have it, the members of Welch fuzz-pop band Joanna Gruesome all met while attending anger management classes. The band allegedly formed out of an exercise that broke the class into groups to compose and perform songs as a way to manage tension and reduce stress. Whether this somewhat far-fetched tale of origin is true or not is unclear, but in the early 2010s, this quintet began recording and playing out live, taking their band name from an especially bratty pun on indie harpist Joanna Newsom's name and making music that bore no common threads to hers whatsoever, opting instead for the influence of the C-86 scene and buried shoegaze guitar tones rather than literary folk modes. The group released several singles and EPs before their abrasive and melodic debut, Weird Sister, arrived on Slumberland Records in late 2013., Rovi