Album Review: Djo - 'The Crux Deluxe'
Yes, you read that right: Djo is back. Not just with a crafty cameo in a Tame Impala music video, but with a full-length statement. The Crux (Deluxe) takes the bones of Joe Keery’s earlier 2025 release and rebuilds them into something denser, sharper, and more cohesive. Across twelve tracks, Keery blends nostalgia-drenched acoustics, experimental detours, and unflinching honesty about love and loss. It’s an album that doesn’t just expand on the original, it redefines it, offering a deeper look into a restless creative mind.
The opener T Rex Is Loud immediately pulls you in with a balance of tenderness and intensity. A guitar-heavy track that marries acoustic strums with searing electric flourishes, it builds toward a crashing climax where Keery croons and hopes that “things get easier.” Don’t we all. It’s an explosive and entrancing start, setting the tone for an album prone to big swings. That intimacy lingers into Love Can’t Break the Spell, a slow, honest cut that accepts the inevitability of love lost. Just when the track risks sinking into despair, a beautifully placed harmonica slices through, elevating the song into something cathartic and surprisingly comforting.
Then comes Mr Mountebank, where guitars fade away for a menacing piano and thumping drums. Keery leans into heavy autotune and futuristic textures, conjuring a soundtrack-like quality that wouldn’t feel out of place in a sci-fi video game. Admittedly, its length makes it feel bloated, though the outro lands with force, salvaging some of the momentum. By contrast, Carry the Name shines in its simplicity. A nostalgic single with vintage-styled instrumentation, it blends reflective lyricism with an unexpectedly peppy chorus. Djo’s desperation feels both sincere and stylish, proving he can deliver heartfelt songwriting without relying on gimmicks.
The heart of the album lies in its reflective midsection. It’s Over takes a bluesier turn, its lyrics haunted by the reminders of a love that refuses to fade. The delivery is weary yet magnetic, as if Djo is trapped in a loop he knows he can’t escape. Then Purgatory Silverstar bursts in, one of the record’s most ambitious tracks. Messy in structure but deliberate in execution, it swings from a contemplative chorus to punk-tinged verses, capped off with some of the strongest guitar work on the project. The acoustic ending grounds it, pulling the chaos back into focus. Who You Are slows things down again, returning to piano for a white-flag surrender. Here Keery sounds defeated but honest, tracing the mistakes that brought him to this point with heartbreaking clarity.
The closing stretch embraces both eccentricity and transcendence. Grime of the World opens like a mirage in the desert, barren and hallucinatory, before exploding into a funky, guitar-driven rescue. The carnival energy carries into Try Me, a playful, earworm-heavy track that proves Keery isn’t afraid of switching things up. They Don’t Know What’s Right dials things back to garage-band grit, its peculiar key section adding nuance before Keery’s raw cries close it out. But the final two tracks are where the deluxe finds its deepest resonance: Thich Nhat Hanh, a string-laden meditation named after the Vietnamese mindfulness teacher, delivers one of the most poignant lyrical moments: “the light will never die.” A powerful yet simple reminder. And then there’s Awake, a haunting closer that twists into something almost demonic before erupting in an anthemic storm of guitars and drums, Djo screaming himself into consciousness.
Taken as a whole, The Crux (Deluxe) outshines the original release in nearly every way. The lead single is sharper, the deep cuts hit harder, and the sequencing creates a flow that feels intentional and immersive. Where the original sometimes felt like sketches of ideas, the deluxe paints them in bold, deliberate strokes. Messy, beautiful, and deeply human, it proves that Djo isn’t just experimenting with sound, he’s carving out a musical identity that is entirely his own.
Words by Alex Peters
