Over the last month or so, I've changed my mind about this new Yuck record more times than I've had to tie my own shoelaces. It's a fun and rascally record, but mostly it's a record unsure of where to set its footing.
There's no good way of talking about Yuck without talking about the '90s college rock luminaries that inform it, which is a testament to the young London outfit's stronghold on powerful melodies. Songs like ""The Wall"" and ""Holing Out"" wield sweeping guitar riffs with every bit of the crunch and enthusiasm carried by antecedents like Archers of Loaf and Superchunk. Yuck has no shortage of singles tailor-made to stand in for whatever nostalgic conception of '90s college radio you carry—and it's not like Guided By Voices are lacking their due props from contemporary audiences. But the inability to ignore the band's source material is also symptomatic of the way Yuck teeters the line between reviving a fruitful genre and replaying its more tired and outdated intonations.
But make no mistake: Yuck are fully immersed in something big. They kick off their debut with ""Get Away,"" a flawless iteration of late-'90s Superchunk in how its extroverted explorations are both soft and relatively reserved. Lead singer Daniel Blumberg is numb and trapped in swirling guitars, asking for help just to figure out ""when the pain kicks in."" It's overwhelming how these things hit you, and he's constantly being bombarded with stimuli that demand his appreciation. For the most part, it's safe to think of Yuck as the group's gestation period, picking through the different styles and brands of '90s alt rock until they find the ones that fit right—which implies some degree of growing pains.
""Georgia,"" for one, was one of last year's singles that helped hype this debut for its ability to rouse the same twee-friendly shoegaze as January 2010's indie darlings Pains of Being Pure at Heart. But Pains' shimmering dalliances lacked the depth and substance to garner staying power that covered the calendar year, and it's the same story here. ""Georgia"" is weightless at best, but they do better on ""Suck"" and ""Stutter"" by using more pointed guitar tones over their tender melodies.
Yuck bounces all over the place, but the most startling track is the one that borrows least from its influences. The final track, ""Rubber,"" is shrouded by distortion, mounting a slow crescendo that wipes its way through scribbles on bathroom stalls to a defeated refrain of ""Should I give in?"" It's slow and arduous, and the vocals are off in the distance, detached. Partway through I feel myself slipping out of favor. Too much noise, not enough production—it feels empty and vulnerable. But then the guitar climbs into focus and the refrain shifts to, ""Yes, I give in,"" and I get sucked back in—which is precisely why I have such a hard time making a decision on this record. It pays tireless homage to the band's influences, occasionally to its own shortcoming and at the risk of sounding very indiscriminate. But when it finds its footing and asserts itself from within its source material it is transfixing. That's the most frustrating thing about trying to write a review about it: It's messy and it's often more interested in its influences than itself, but I just can't stop listening. Yuck is a vibrant display of youthful wonder that despite all its hiccups refuses to let me ignore it; and for what it's worth, I suspect many people will have the same problem.
