Joe Keery is 29 and Misaligned in his Latest Album 'Crux'
Listening to The Crux felt like walking into a hotel that I had dreamed of but never stayed in. Like I had packed a bag full of heartbreaks I hadn't unpacked yet, and each song was a different room asking me to open one. Joe (or Djo, but here he feels more like Joe) isn’t just giving you music—he’s giving you a map of indecision. The whole album feels like it was written in that strange stretch of late night where you’re still awake but the world’s asleep, where you’re left alone with your own echoes. The synths shimmer like distant freeway lights. His voice often sounds like it’s coming from the other side of a mirror—familiar but slightly blurred. That blur is the point. He’s not trying to be crystal clear. He’s trying to be emotionally accurate.
I found myself crying during “Back on You,” but not in the obvious way. It’s the kind of sadness you feel when you finally realize you’ve been misunderstood for too long. There’s this children’s choir layered in with this hyper-emotional sonic haze, and it hit something primal in me—like being both the child who needed to be saved and the woman doing the saving. “Delete Ya” sounded like what a goodbye feels like when you didn’t say enough. The ache in his falsetto wasn’t dramatic—it was laced in restraint, which made it worse. “Egg” made me spiral a little, not gonna lie. It reminded me of how often I shapeshift to survive, how I get tired of becoming someone digestible for other people. The percussion builds like a quiet panic attack, and then resolves into almost nothing—like he’s saying, “Yeah, I know. Me too.”
Joe Keery is doing something people underestimate. He’s turning coolness into confession. There are moments where I forgot he’s famous at all. And that’s where the album gets sharp—because you realize fame didn’t protect him from doubt. It gave him more mirrors to look into and fewer chances to breathe. The whole "hotel" metaphor isn’t just clever—it’s coded. These songs are check-ins for people like me: the ones who don’t know where they’re going, only that they’re tired of pretending they already arrived.
“The Crux” doesn’t demand anything from the listener. It invites. It plays like a long voicemail from someone you once loved but lost contact with, except instead of asking for closure, they’re saying, “I’m still trying to understand it too.” I felt safe inside this album. Even when it got messy. Especially when it got messy.
Joe’s not just evolving—he’s remembering something he forgot before he was ever on screen. And this record is the sound of that remembering.
