recommending other bands that aren't necessarily joan of arc or joan of arc related is okay too
They have so much pap but it seems like everybody likes and dislikes their stuff on an individual basis. I still don't recommend them to people because of this. Good live band, always interesting on record but so wildly inconsistent. I think I basically like all of their records on some level so I guess I should be able to advise you. Firstly I think the Owls record and all three Make Believe records (and the self-titled EP) are better than anything Joan of Arc have put out over the years. However, as great as those are they are all mathy rock music, which is subtly different to the recorded output of Joan of Arc. You might also enjoy Ghosts & Vodka, the instrumental band featuring two guitarists who played in Joan of Arc at various times.
In terms of JOA themselves they basically started as an emocore band with some electronic samples thrown in. This is basically the template of the first two records (lots of people seem to rate these very highly, I think they're pretty good). The third record confusingly titled
Joan of Arc Live In Chicago 1999 ("Live" rhymes with "Give") is arguably the turning point in terms of their sound. They started to incorporate many more different electronic textures and different instruments. There are some nice little jams on this record and for many people it's the last of their brief, relatively approachable albums. By comparison, the next few were basically regarded as either bold or the some of the worst music ever recorded. In truth it sort of strays between the two. First of all is
The Gap, which might be the most polarising record ever. On the one hand, they basically abandoned songs in favour of long, meandering and occasionally tuneless vignettes. Each "song" has one hundred or so tracks so it's quite a hard listen. After many, many years I finally warmed to it but it's more of a statement than a music record. Likewise there is an EP from around the same time which has a couple of their best songs but also contains bizarre recordings of children and seemingly random sound-scapes.
Those records were so hated that Joan of Arc was briefly abandoned. Lead songwriter Tim Kinsella wrote and recorded a solo album with the incredible title
So Much For Staying Alive, which was supposed to be his tribute to My Bloody Valentine (hence the alternative title
Lovelessness) but sounds nothing like them. It's an interesting batch of guitar-based singer-songwriter tunes though and some people on this forum seem to rate it. More interesting is the partner album
In Rape Fantasy And Terror Sex We Trust, Kinsella's nightmarish response to the incoming Bush administration. Lots of weird sound collages and a handful of decent songs courtesy of some other musicians who would form the new line-up of Joan of Arc. This line-up produced the surprisingly good return to form
Joan of Arc, Dick Cheney, Mark Twain, an eclectic group of deeply paranoid and abstract protest songs featuring all manner of weird instrumentation. The same group produced the largely acoustic
Eventually, All At Once which never clicked with me but seems to be well regarded. After that it seems like you're basically up to date.
