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Mar 01, 2016 Yuck By Ed McMenamin

After original frontman Daniel Blumberg departed Yuck between the 2011 debut and 2013’s follow-up Glow & Behold, the London four-piece carried on and promoted guitarist Max Bloom to band leader. It was an unusual move and one that has saddled the band with possibly unfair comparisons to itself. This is not really the same group, and yet it kept the name and a similar sound. So in what context—as music obsessives or barstool chit-chatters, whatever—do we place the subsequent albums?

2013’s follow-up doesn’t compare well to the original. It’s over-produced, awash in horns and studio trinkets bustling around backstage. It’s mid-tempo to a default. It’s also occasionally beautiful, and if judged as a new band’s debut, it might have been more intriguing.

Now we have the new record, Stranger Things. If we’re talking Yuck 2.0, it’s an improvement over Glow. The onerous production choices are gone. In that way, it echoes the first version of the band in a facile sense, and Yuck is still mining the same ‘90s influences. Bloom doubles down on Teenage Fanclub for the slow numbers, and Built to Spill for the big ones, guitars hopping two stairs at a time during the chorus of “Hearts in Motion.” For better or for worse, Yuck no longer sounds like a band trying too hard to eclipse its own past. (www.yuckband.com)

Author rating: 6.5/10