Yuck - Yuck [Fat Possum]

7.2

Yuck are a noisy, lo-fi, indie rock band out of London with a passion to revive the glory days of heavily distorted shoegaze guitar freak-outs of Sonic Youth and the fuzzy, blurry pop qualities of Dinosaur Jr. in the 1990s. Yuck’s balanced ability to create simple, constructive song structures that are catchy and are full of great hooks and still push the envelope as being a traditional indie act. Yuck’s self-titled debut isn’t anything new, but that doesn’t necessarily make it bad; in fact, Yuck is a great nostalgic trip that traces through the traditional hard-hitting ‘90s noise rock underground.

As being a conventional rock band, Yuck aren’t going to be making any wonky noises or experimental ventures into a different realm that they aren’t comfortable with. They are going to be traditional, unending noise rock that keeps you interested for what it is, but really won’t be “wowing” you with bust out fresh sounds. The simple track structures Yuck revolve around are the simplest in the game, excluding the seven minute closer “Rubber” which reminisces of a Sonic Youth noisy long-winded jam.

Yuck can get quiet to and create some pretty interesting melodies like the multi-personality of “Suicide Policemen” with its chill-out acoustic guitar and wavy guitar interludes; it really comes off as one of the high points of Yuck. Another quiet addition is the eerily familiar “Shook Down” that could easily be passed off as any ‘90s radio rock single that underground fans adore because it’s a obscure band making a radio single within the underground scene.

Everything on Yuck sounds dated and easily fifteen years too late, so honestly you won’t be hearing anything new and fresh, but what you do hear is pretty nice. I could easily go back to a Dinosaur Jr. record and hear basically the same stuff, but even those guys are moving into new realms with their music. The hooks are nice, especially on the fun “Operation” which is led by a cool guitar part that really shines out everything else going on, especially on lead singer Daniel Blumberg’s muggy lo-fi vocals.

Blumberg can’t seem to find himself through all the noisy walls of sound similarly to the singer of early 2011 stars, Smith Westerns. You can’t understand a word he’s saying, but who really wants to? With the somewhat simple songwriting, Blumberg can’t be saying anything really that interesting can he? Not a single word is comprehendible on the seven minute blurry finish “Rubber” as walls and walls of guitar flood Blumberg’s voice in the sound.

All in all, Yuck is nothing new, but you can’t entirely hate its unoriginality because what Yuck create is nice and pleasant for any ‘90s noise rock head that wants to be reminded of fun and hooky ambition that was Dinosaur Jr. or Sonic Youth. Unless Yuck has a crazy different sophomore act that expands their sound away from the conventional pop formula, they really won’t be wowing anybody anytime soon.