Yuck
April 2, 2016
Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO
Upon my first time hearing Yuck’s “Get Away” off of their debut album, I was immediately excited about their obvious Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. influences. The rest of the album proved to be no disappointment. With their fuzzed out guitars, strong pop melodies, and almost apathetic style vocals, I am always excited to find bands that bring me back to late 80’s early 90’s noise rock shoegaze as emphasized by bands like Swervedriver and My Bloody Valentine. After the debut album, unfortunately, their lead singer Daniel Blumberg left and their sound suffered a bit as well.
Nevertheless, they are out touring in support of “Stranger Things”. From the opening 20 seconds you can hear a more pop influenced Built to Spill sound. From a few listens and my previous experience with their debut, I decided to check them out. They were playing at this intimate little venue/bar that holds about 1,000 people max for a show so any spot is a good one to see a band.
While their apathetic, droney sound is so much of what I like, they seemed to be lacking emotion throughout their whole show. I imagined certain songs such as “Get Away” and “Holing Out” getting kicked up a notch but they went the opposite direction. I was reminded of my slight disappointment with seeing Silversun Pickups a few years back at Red Rocks. I will say, the songs that their bassist Mariko Doi did were pleasant but still a bit uninspired. She had a great voice live and a general cool Kim Deal like presence up there.
Overall, their lack of inspiration was evident in the crowd. Most everyone seemed to be in a general cool cross armed indie kid at the show mood except for a few bros trying to get a small dance party going. It was not the kind of show I was hoping for unfortunately they really did not deliver or inspire.
Article By: Chris Beliveau
