You already know this is coming: we've been telling you for weeks and weeks. But, jeepers, our hopes are high. That's because Yuck, more so than just about any band since Johnny Foreigner, is musically about all the things that we are musically about. Which basically means they make flawless -- if somewhat anachronistic -- music, music that sounds like the best things the early '90s had to offer. Like Johnny Foreigner, Yuck has yet to make a musical mis-step -- not bad for a quartet (five, if you count guest vocalist/"part-time member" Llana Blumberg, sister of Daniel) that has been around fewer than two years. Yuck the album will be released in the U.S. by Fat Possum on Feb. 15, according to a recent email. Other new news? Yuck the band will return to America for a tour on the heels of a series of UK dates in February, which tour will lead up to a performance at the 2011 edition of the annual music confab SXSW in March. So if you were disappointed when the foursome cancelled its short strand of planned October 2010 dates, there is a chance to make up for lost time come spring, yeh? Here's the track list to Yuck, as well as some familiar Soundcloud embeds:
1. Get Away
2. The Wall
3. Shook Down
4. Holing Out
5. Suicide Policeman
6. Georgia
7. Suck
8. Stutter
9. Operation
10. Sunday
11. Rose Gives a Lily
12. Rubber
Suicide Policeman by Yuck
Rubber by Yuck
I have heard this whole Yuck record and I'm hoping it will be dedicated to me because it seems made not just to my taste but to my current needs.
ReplyDeleteSociology would support the notion that I lost interest in new music years ago as a natural evolution of biology -- I'll be 44 in April. Yet, two things have worked against me toward this unfortunate situation.
First, there has not been a hell of a lot of music by new artists that is consistent with my taste. This would necessitate opening my mind and pushing my boundaries further; intuitively not a problem for someone with my history as a music fan.
But the second problem is that I've felt like I've burned out. If it's not that my mental hard drive is full then certainly my mental RAM is. Meaning I can handle more music by my favorites, but pushing out into new kinds of music seems like an impossible task.
This is why the most welcome new acts are the revivalists. For me, Jack White is the most important musical innovator of the last ten years because he's got all of the talent of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant rolled into one person and he's got more enthusiasm in his chord-forming fingers than both of those guys put together.
And now there's Yuck. I hate the name. Yuck, I say, both as exclamation and interjection. Their name sounds like the name of an act the teenager on a sitcom wants to go to a big concert by with her friends but the fat dad and the hot mom won't let her.
"And just who is this rock and roll band that you want to get into a car with a bunch of strangers and drive all night to go see?" asks the hot mom.
"Yuck," answers the teen girl.
"I know you're frustrated, young lady," says the fat dad, "but answer your mother."
"Ha ha ha," goes the laugh track.
The magic of Yuck is great songwriting coupled with arrangements that are absurdly unoriginal and hyper-influenced by many of the best alt-rockers of the '90s. What we'd hope for next are more great songs and a more original sound a next release.
For now, feel free to guess the influence song-by-song. "Get Away" is Dinosaur Jr. "Operation" had to have been borne of a rehearsal jam on Sonic Youth's "Teenage Riot." "Holing Out" would have made a serviceable Lemonheads album track. Both "Shook Down" and "Suck" sound uncannily like my beloved and tragically neglected Drop Nineteens. The most contemporary thing going on here is that over-modulated Strokes-ian vocal sound on a handful of cuts.
My concern might be the England factor. When the recording careers and visibility of English bands that begin this strong aren't fleeting then their quality is. In which case, ultimately Yuck won't so much a celebrated act as this self-titled album will be.
Because it will be.
I'm jealous you've heard this whole thing. I should pre-order this jawn. Wonderful band.
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