Originally sold to the masses as a 'shoegazey Sonic Youth', Yuck have been building up a lot of hype recently. Chosen as one of the BBC's Sound of 2011 bands, and formed by some of the ex-members of Cajun Dance Party, they had a lot of potential to be truly terrible. The Vaccines, their rivals in the BBC poll, seem to be another in the line of terrible 'indie' NME bands of recent years, but Yuck are actually surprisingly good.
They claim to be influenced by Mark Kozelek and various shoegaze bands, but in reality at least half their songs could have been released by late 80s/early 90s Teenage Fanclub, while the rest draw heavily on a variety of sources, all of which I love. 'Georgia' is one of the lead singles from the album, and probably the most poppy this album gets, with echoes of various older American indiepop bands like Black Tambourine. 'Operation' is, essentially, exactly the same as 'Teen Age Riot', apart from lacking a bit of drive in certain sections. None of this is a bad thing in any way for a band still on their debut album, and they show the ability to be original as well, as in 'Rubber', the monolithic, devastating shoegaze ender to both the album and their live sets. Some of the guitar work really is exceptional, with jangle and fuzz both used to great effect.
Some of the slower songs are also worthy of praise. 'Suck', the only song where the Red House Painters influence really is evident, is much closer in spirit to their acoustic side-project, Yu(c)k, which released a really good EP late last year. Everything they've done until this album is downloadable on their website - I advise checking a lot of it out.
They basically just make bloody good 80s revivalist shoegazey rock music, the other side of the coin to the Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's 80s revivalist shoegazey pop music. And I think that was something that was lacking slightly in the music scene until Yuck came along.
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