Yuck / Yes Cadets at The Speakeasy
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The Speakeasy is slowly beginning to fill up on a bitterly cold Sunday night and it seems as if they are playing the best of Creation Records as the backing music. But the first disc, natch. Teenage Fanclub, My Bloody Valentine, bit of Ride. all warn us exactly what we’re going to be in for over the next hour or so. Effects pedals. Floppy fringes. A circle pit. No, only kidding. We’re all too busy staring at our shoes.
First up we have a strangely un-engaging set from the normally irrepressible Yes Cadets. Opening with a slowed down version of Canada, the band seem out of sorts. There’s not much in the way of banter and the lack of crowd reaction doesn’t seem to be helping. We’ve seen them better than this, here’s hoping it’s just an off night.
Yuck (please ignore the terrible name) is the vehicle of Daniel Blumberg, former frontman with indie-synth wunderkinder Cajun Dance Party, an outfit that collapsed under the weight of music weekly hype while still in their teens.
You can’t keep a good man down and Yuck are a million miles (and not a few decades) away from the sounds of Cajun Dance Party. There’s bank upon bank of effects pedals walls of sound and shronky guitars. It’s like Sir Richard Attenborough found a lump of Jay Mascis embedded in amber and cloned the mighty Dinosaur Jnr. for a thrilling, indie-rock theme park.
It’s uncanny, the similarities. Yuck could have stepped straight off the Empire Records soundtrack, they’re a band that could have saved your life and a pre-acid house Alan McGee would have signed them in an instant. It’s almost a shock when the engaging frontman addresses us in a well-spoken English accent.
There’s only one problem. The sound. After the initial teething issues (notably dominant bass and muddy vocals) are sorted out there’s one major issue. The sound is note perfect but no-where near loud enough. Maybe it’s having experienced the sheer face melting volume of Mogwai or Dinosaur Jnr. But it’s just too quiet.
This is the only thing barring a real, visceral reaction. It’s only with the last song that the sound and the fury let rip and the band show themselves at their finest. It’s a real shame, Yuck are a fully formed shoegazing powerhouse.
ATL recalls the first time we saw The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, whose debut album was a facsimile of their favourite bands, only to blow us away with their more assured second. There’s a lot of the same feeling here, the latent power is clear to see.
It could be seen as derivative, it’s defiantly revivalistic and there really isn’t anything new on offer. The riffs and soundscapes may be as familiar is time itself to some of the audience, but in a big scary world where even Thurston and Kim can break up, we could all use a bit of comfort
Shane Horan
Comment number 1.
At 12th Dec 2011, Dan Erwin wrote:another great gig. big shame bout the sound all the same not loud enough, still good.
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