Yuck, Yuck
Reviewed by: Chris Bosman
There has always been a debate about what the term “indie” means. Usually it’s a question asked of a new initiate, so to speak, to the idea of indie as a genre. What kind of sounds fall under the indie moniker? What bands represent the indie sound? In recent years, the term has become more ubiquitous and more quoted. It’s ironic, then, that as the term is gaining a more widespread use, its definition has become more obscured. These days, “indie” can refer broadly to just about any artist or band operating without radio or chart support.
It wasn’t always like this. In the mid-90s, the question of what was indie still raged, but the answer was more relatively understandable. Yuck, a London-based quartet who recently released their debut LP on Fat Possum, traffic on that same ground; they’re an indie band. Meaning, essentially, they’re an idiosyncratic pop rock group with just enough of an edge of something to keep them from being completely palatable on the radio. This was territory that had been traversed by iconic bands like Pavement and Modest Mouse, and records like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain and The Lonesome, Crowded West are reasonable touchstones for Yuck. The songs here a bit more straightforward, and rope in a few of the lo-fi revival’s influences– shoegaze, garage rock, Phil Spector pop– but much of what you hear on Yuck is going to sound enticingly familiar.
On one hand, it’s kind of a shame. The first contact I had with Yuck was in the form of “Automatic,” a heartbreaking ballad built on single, lonely piano notes, and the aching chorus “I was always in automatic/ Don’t assume I’m in control.” “Automatic” itself wasn’t really anything new, and you could probably trace its roots back to Death Cab For Cutie’s “Passenger Seat,” but it hardly wore its influences on its sleeves the way much of Yuck does. Over the course of its dozen songs, it’s apparent that this band heard “Cut Your Hair” a lot. A friend once told me, in reference to any sort of music that can fall under the revivalist tag, that if you’re going to go that route, there better be a damn good reason for a listener to choose your songs over the songs that you’re, um, reviving. With the songs on Yuck, I’m not entirely sure there is.
But don’t mistake that for a condemnation of the band. These songs are well-crafted, intelligently written, and impressively arranged. On “Georgia,” female vocalist Mariko Doi puts on a show; one can almost see her snap her fingers in a wonderfully 70s female pop star way over the track’s ramshackle guitar fuzz. The guitars positively glisten with Siamese Drea- er, with dreaminess, on “Stutter.” And on opener “Get Away,” the guitar hook sounds like something My Bloody Valentine would have been proud of, and that same song’s bridge could have been Archers of Loaf at their most engaging. This is a band that’s talented, both at their instruments and at creating music that’s as much a tribute to their heroes as it is a synthesis of their various styles.
I can’t shake the feeling, though, that much of Yuck is going to remind me less of those facts than it is going to remind me of how long it’s been since I listened to Keep It Like a Secret. At the end of the day, the twelve songs that comprise Yuck are good. And that’s about it. The fact that they feature obvious homages to much of indie rock’s heyday is a hindrance in that respect: in their best moments (“Georgia”), they aren’t better than their influences, and in their worst (“Shook Down”), they’re not engaging enough to sound like their own failures. If they had come up in the middle of the era they’re indebted to, I’m not sure if they would have made a blip. Does that matter? I’m not sure, but I think I’m gonna go put on In Utero.