The 90's revivalism of 2011 has been well documented both in critical circles and in my own best of 2011 list. For people who didn't necessarily grow up in that transitional period of time, I can imagine that it seems a gold mine of influences to be plundered and in truth, it is...for those who can do it well. Otherwise, we get some defanged version of how those bands sounded. However, some releases this year contained amazing insight into what made those bands function as well as they did and how they produced many of the genre defining songs from that decade. Bands like The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and Cymbals Eat Guitars placed particular emphasis on the crunch and sometimes-forgotten melodic heft that the 90's developed and that is prone to be overlooked in critical reassessments.
With early showcase song "Daughter" in 2010, Yuck displayed an innate knack for realizing the multi-factedness of what the 90's had to offer. It wasn't just another Superchunk/Pavement aping attempt at reviving an appreciation of that time and those bands. Yuck built upon a simple piano-ish riff leading into one of the best build-up slow burners of last year. With their self-titled debut, Yuck have gone deeper into the riches of the 90's and come away with a fresh and immediately captivating take on the bands and sounds which have so influenced them and dozens of other current bands. Surging Superchunk-inspired opener "Get Away" tears through its runtime with a passionate insistence of the resonance of its own inlfuences. "Georgia" allows the band room to showcase the poppier sound of the 90's, with its typical boy-girl relationship tropes. Yuck never allow the seeming novelty of their sound to allow the listener to forget that this is a singular band with a very definite musical identity and not a greatest hits of 90's indie rock, though in all honesty it makes a great case that such a compilation would be pretty fucking great.
Tracklisting:
01. Get Away (listen to the mp3 below)
02. The Wall
03. Shook Down
04. Holing Out
05. Suicide Policeman
06. Georgia
07. Suck
08. Stutter
09. Operation
10. Sunday
11. Rose Gives a Lilly
12. Rubber
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