In-store: Yuck

Yuck

Sonic Boom. Sunday, May 1, 2011.

It's not nostalgia — or at least that most corrosive kind of nostalgia — if you're too young to remember the first go 'round of the thing you're venerating. It's that narrow door that makes Yuck — young British revivalists of 90's North American "alternative" guitar rock — seem charming (if not bracing) rather than depressing. Of course, the fact that these sounds from my own salad days are nearly as old as the crew playing them is a little blow that I'll just deal with myself, muttering over in the corner.

In town to open for Tame Impala at The Phoenix, the band also graciously dropped in to the basement at Sonic Boom for what would be their first local appearance. It would not be a stripped-down sort of affair, thankfully, as revealed by the blasts of guitar noise as the band set up and Daniel Blumberg's revealing inquiry as to the store's sound system: "Izzat the loudest?"

And indeed, the band played with pleasing volume — sporting, right from the outset, that delicious mix of crunchiness and gooey tunefulness on display throughout their self-titled debut full-length. The album would provide all of the set's songs, leading with "Holing Out" and "The Wall".

The basic four-piece (two guits/bass/drums) were unassuming on stage — not super-animated, but charming in their low-key British way. They also managed to endear me further with the fact that they'd taken the trouble to tack up their DIY banner behind the stage. They offered a half-dozen songs, easing down with the mellower "Suicide Policeman" before closing it out with the fabulous "Get Away", which features Mariko Doi's audaciously Doolittle-esque bassline.

The robust crowd — many of them about the band's age — didn't seem unduly concerned about pinning down the reference points. And though this is indeed such good stuff — I really enjoy the album a lot — I wasn't quite able to stop the racing part of my mind drawing lines back to bands gone by. You'll hear names like Dino Jr. invoked a lot for comparisons to the band, but I think they mostly bring to mind bands with a more tuneful mix of fuzz and melody — there's a direct line from Teenage Fanclub (circa A Catholic Education) to this band, and I left with this scrawled in my notepad: "This really makes me want to dig out that copy of nc17." What a drag it is gettin' old, but rock'n'roll revivals can spread their own little pixiedust bursts of rejuvenation if y'let 'em.

Listen to a track from this set here.