Yuck
Yuck
3 stars
Rock
If Yuck was an ice cream flavor, it would be cookies ‘n’ cream. It’s sweet and satisfying, but the taste in your mouth at the end of the record is a little bland.
The band’s self-titled release is pleasurable, but nothing unexpected, and while it’s entirely palatable, it won’t likely set your senses off in fireworks.
The band blends punk, pop and garage rock. Guitar riffs build and slam with solid chords on some tracks and fade into fuzzy dreaminess on others. Songs on the album fall into two major (but cohesive) categories — slow rock ballads and energized rock tracks. There is power to Yuck’s sound, but it’s nothing that will blow your clothes off.
Female vocals lift the album’s guitar-laden vibe on slow jams such as “Suicide Policeman” and “Suck.” The patient but driven feel of these tracks, along with the push-pull and harmonization provided by coed vocals, evokes fellow London group The XX.
But Yuck transcends geography — its sound is reminiscent at points of pop punkers from California’s Beulah to Vancouver’s The New Pornographers.
Yuck may fade among the ranks of similar-sounding bands, but the nature of its sound lends the promise of a supreme live show. Indeed, Yuck may present a classic case of the woeful but common disconnect between the quality of a group’s music in performance and music in recording.
So don’t discount Yuck just yet — the group is certainly worth a listen, even if the flavor is nothing novel.
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