Since their formation in 2014, JOSEPH have delivered a radiant form of indie-pop that hits with a dazzling impact before revealing its deeper power: a rare ability to catalyze self-reflection and ease the listener into more heart-centered ways of navigating the world. On their new album Closer to Happy, Oregon-bred sisters Natalie and Meegan Closner document a whirlwind period of loss, upheaval, and radical self-acceptance, embracing an entirely new sense of emotional abandon—an element Natalie refers to as “allowing ourselves to feel, and to speak those feelings out loud without prescribing a solution or balm.” Their first new music since the departure of their sister/co-founder Allison Closner, Closer to Happy ultimately marks JOSEPH’s boldest and most thrilling work yet in a career devoted to unbridled truth-telling.

JOSEPH’s fifth full-length and first release since signing with Nettwerk Music Group, Closer to Happy finds Natalie andMeegan co-producing alongside Luke Niccoli (Carly Rae Jepsen, Towa Bird, Andrew McMahon in the Wilderness) and bringing a punchy new intensity to their guitar-heavy and harmony-driven sound. “Luke is so explosively full of ideas and constantly coming up with new sounds to work with,” says Natalie. “From the beginning our connection seemed very familial, and it felt safe to open up and be completely real with him.” Recorded at Niccoli’s studio in Nashville, the album embodies an irrepressible energy that partly stems from spotlighting the larger-than-life vocal work JOSEPH have shown in headlining multiple tours, sharing bills with the likes of The Shins and Amos Lee, and appearing at major festivals like Coachella, Bonnaroo, and Glastonbury. “Our live show is where we’ve always shined, but with three singers it was somehow easy for our vocals to get buried,” says Meegan. “This time we wanted to highlight the thing that makes our shows so great, especially those moments where we’re just singing at the top of our lungs.”

The first song created with Niccoli, a bittersweet but triumphant standalone track called “Starting Over At The End” surfaced from a place of exhaustion but soon set the tone for JOSEPH’s vibrant new chapter. “We went into our first co-write with Luke feeling spent, like we had nothing left to say,” says Meegan, noting that their first meeting with Niccoli took place at the end of 10 back-to-back days of sessions with a variety of co-writers/producers. “Finally, we decided to talk about what was really going on with us, which was Allie leaving the band. We loved writing that song with Luke so much, we ended up making our whole album with him.”

Built on their most unfiltered songwriting to date, Closer to Happy opens on a lyric composed by Natalie in the throes of a personal crisis: “Crying in the bathroom of the Bye and Bye/Saturday’s mascara in my eye/It’s Tuesday.” “I was in a bar with my former girlfriend right after Allie had told us she was moving on, and suddenly all the loss hit me at once,” says Natalie, who’d also recently gone through a divorce. “It felt like everything I was had ended, and I wasn’t even at the point where something new was coming in. I started crying and ran into the bathroom and wrote those lyrics as a way to express, ‘This is where I’m at right now.’” An up-close look at the often-insurmountable gulf between expectation and reality, “Bye & Bye” eventually gave the album its title (from the chorus: “I thought I’d be closer to happy/Be the one to get it all right/I know who I was was trying her hardest/But it’s hard not to blame her in hindsight”). “That song essentially came from arriving in my late 30s and looking back on my life to this point,” Natalie says. “It’s about releasing your ideas about how you thought your life would turn out, and the self-forgiveness that’s required for that.”

All throughout Closer to Happy, JOSEPH transmute their heaviest feelings into songs with a strangely exhilarating effect. To that end, “Closer To Me” took shape as Meegan opened up about her experience with chronic pain, soon evolving into a blissfully frenetic anthem lit up in dizzying beats and sticky-sweet melodies. “Dealing with chronic pain is really intense on a mental level, partly because there’s a shame that comes with feeling like you’ve done something wrong to make the pain worse,” says Meegan. “With ‘Closer To Me,’ I wanted to write a personal fight song to put on whenever I need to remind myself that I’m going to be okay and there’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Another track that speaks to the beauty of true self-reliance, “I Believe In Myself” finds Meegan trading off lead vocals with singer/songwriter Becca Mancari and laying down a wildly cathartic epic that culminates in a mantra-like repetition of its title. “We grew up in a fundamentalist religious environment where we were told that you can’t trust yourself; you can only trust God and your pastors,” says Natalie. “When you’re raised that way, you get to adulthood and realize you’re completely cut off from your intuition. ‘I Believe In Myself’ is about constructing your own inner voice, and learning how to listen to it for the first time in your life.”

In their deliberate undoing of narratives that no longer serve them, JOSEPH also dreamed up songs like “Looking Back”—a wistful reflection on the struggle to assimilate, graced with a gut-punching vocal performance from Meegan. “From a young age we were taught that there’s a specific path you need to follow if you want to have a good life,” says Natalie. “‘Looking Back’ is about wondering why it’s so hard to conform to that path, and then understanding it was okay to be yourself all along.” On “Ready To Let You Down,” Natalie unlocks an undeniable strength by facing her deepest insecurities with equal parts courage and giddy defiance. “In therapy I’ve realized my biggest fear is being a disappointment,” she says. “Working through it involves recognizing that I’m a person who makes mistakes, and integrating that into my identity. When I sing that chorus—‘I’m jealous and petty, unsteady/I’m ready to let you down’—it feels so freeing, like giving myself permission to not set a perfect example.” And on “Blindspot,” JOSEPH look both inward and outward at an increasingly fractured world, offering up a moody yet potent track penned with Morgan Taylor Reid (also a co-writer on their smash single “White Flag,” a No. 1 hit on Billboard’s Adult Alternative Airplay chart). “There’s a line in ‘Blindspot’ where we say ‘I’ve been hating you in the name of love,’ which has to do with the ‘us vs. them’ mentality that can come into play when you’re dealing with people who think differently than you,” says Meegan. “That song’s asking how to fight for what you believe while still holding compassion for others, instead of giving into self-righteousness.”

The follow-up to 2023’s The Sun, Closer to Happy in many ways signifies the dawning of a new era for JOSEPH, who got their start playing backyard parties and made their label debut with 2016’s Billboard 200-charting I’m Alone, No You’re Not. “When Allie left, Meegan and I looked at each other and asked if we still wanted to do this,” says Natalie. “Once we decided to move forward, it felt like it was coming from a different place than the past, with a real sense of freedom and release.” As part of JOSEPH’s rebirth, Natalie and Meegan took greater ownership over the band’s business operations and achieved a new level of financial self-sufficiency—a factor that’s trickled down to the most granular of creative decisions. “We’re no longer looking at snare tones and asking ourselves, ‘If we go with this sound, will it appeal to this type of audience?’” says Natalie. “Instead of attaching any kind of survival need to the new album, our outlook was more like, ‘We’re so lucky that we get to do this, and we can make whatever we want.’”

Like all their work so far, Closer to Happy emerged from JOSEPH’s heartfelt mission of bringing about real transformation in their audience. “What we’re trying to get across with this album is ‘You’re okay as you are right now,’” says Natalie. “These songs all came from learning we can trust ourselves, and we hope that’s the feeling people walk away with for themselves too.” And in their own lived experience, JOSEPH have noticed a certain ripple effect in that heightened sense of self-trust. “I know that in my own journey, my distrust and judgment of myself have spilled out onto the people around me,” says Meegan. “But the softer I’ve become toward myself, the softer I’ve been able to be with others. I hope these songs can help people to find peace with themselves, so that they can expand and bring that peace to the rest of the world.”