★★★★
What has our fair city of Sydney been up to lately? Not too much, really – just churning out choice local tunes without pause for breath.
A prime example of this comes from three-piece Yeevs, who, after their first single in 2014 and a couple more awesome tunes later, have released their debut EP of shiny new songs in HowToHarkenBack.
While the new EP doesn’t contain their previous singles – the rocking standalone tracks ‘Speakin’ Some Sense’, ‘Chunk’ and ‘Lazy’ – this seems to work in their favour. The EP is a small step away from the more pronounced garage tendencies of these tracks, with things being a little more polished while still remaining delightfully noisy.
There’s a subtle and almost delicate nature to HowToHarkenBack – The Smashing Pumpkins are definitely in there somewhere – but this merely flanks a bright sprawling mess of mid-song noise. Without being boring, many of the tracks follow this pattern and it totally works, with an underlying warmth sustained beneath the soft reflection, the controlled chaos, and Bradley Cork’s gut-wrenchingly affecting vocals.
Yeevs have a quiet urgency about them; there’s a sense that something special is going on here that can only keep growing and thriving. It’ll be a fun ride watching that happen.
Released independently Yeevs’ HowToHarkenBack is available now.
