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Jun 08, 2016 Yung By Dan Lucas

What is punk pop? In theory, it is an impossible concept: its very name is, after all, an oxymoron. However you choose to define it, it is perhaps the best genre for Yung to very, very loosely hang their debut album on.

There is only the vaguest sense of cohesion on A Youthful Dream, an album that sounds exactly like its title. It’s a record awash in choppy guitars and riffs straight out of The Replacements’ playbook, but it is also one that encapsulates the conflict between “pop” and “punk” by never really settling on either and jarring as it veers between the two.

“The Sound of Being Okay,” for example, is anything but. Mikkel Holm Silkjær, the Danish band’s singer, opens the throttle over an urgent, pounding rhythm section and undulating guitar line and recreates the sound of countless mid-2000s American landfill emo bands. Fine if you like that thing, I guess, but we’re now beyond the midway point of the next decade.

This isn’t to say it’s all bad. “Silence” is an intriguing instrumental that hints that the band has some genuinely interesting ideas but then ends after just 58 seconds. The title track, meanwhile, suggests the band have post-punk influences.

The most successful moments are the poppier ones. “Morning View” is light and upbeat, while the excitable riff of “Pills” is vaguely reminiscent of Weezer’s “Surf Wax America.” Arguably the album’s biggest weakness is that its muffled, messy production doesn’t lend itself to the best songs. Still, these guys are just kids and their potential makes them likeable enough. (www.yungbandstuff.com)

Author rating: 6/10