Yuck are young, British and vaunted by NME. Yet, despite all of the above, they’re actually very listenable. After a wash of tremendously shit, ‘indie’, post-post-Libertines groups to be spread forth from the Mother-country and onto our nation’s airwaves, we finally have a group that actually sound interesting.
That’s not to say that Yuck are doing anything remotely original. They’ve copped more than a few benevolent backhanders throughout their rapid rise, most notably the barely-derogatory epithet ‘Dinosaur Jr. Jr’. But rather than adopt the quiet-quiet-loud dynamic that defines the body of that particular band’s work, each of the dozen tracks contained Yuck’s self-titled debut run at a steadfast level.
If you were to etch a Venn diagram comparing the album’s slow-burning numbers and the ear-fuckingly loud ones, you’d have a near-symmetrical layout with a fairly barren overlay. Occupying most of the mid-territory would be the chugging LP-closer Rubber, with a hypnotically restrained beat underpinning a string of freakin’-loud guitar work.
The youthful temperament of the group is indelibly etched within the songwriting, most noticeably within the chagrin-inducing lyrics ofThe Wall – in which the title is incessantly repeated amongst insipid couplets until you just wish it was an instrumental jam. Conversely, Suicide Policeman is a softly sweet, acoustic love ballad. And Suck is delivered with a mature, levelled candour, with lines such as “I heard you used to make love on a Tuesday, he’d flip you over this way and that way,” delivered with a foreboding tinge of dread.
Any semblance of being overly derivative of the shoegaze vanguard is well and truly overridden by a deeply refreshing pallet of guitar tones and wistful vocals. And to quickly touch on the band’s impactful moniker – it does provide lazy music hacks ammo for lousy quips along the lines of “Yuck? More like Yum!” Ugh.
