FUZZ CLUB 3rd May 2024
Frenzied, loud, distorted garage punk, all about hammering riffs, thundering drums and hoarsely shouted vocals. I love it.
YOBS are a four-piece Liverpudlian band, waving the banner of over-indulgence with new single, ‘Wasted’. Inspired by being so mashed at a festival that Joey Ackland, front man, couldn’t find his way out of a portaloo, it channels all the classic sounds of garage bands – with call and response vocals, simple, plangent guitar solo and refusal to divert from the frontal assault. Both a warning and a hymn, as Blake said in his Proverbs of Hell, “the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom”.
Nothing is quieter than this and the ten songs drain more sweat in their half an hour than most bands in an hour. Debut double-sided single is here – ‘Fortune Teller’ / ‘Cemetery Man’ in all their bonkers glory but the song between them is even madder – telling us “I’m a head-the-ball” in incessant chorus commentary, while verses are unintelligible yelping. Allegedly it is proudly stamping the band as anti-elitists and saying “Don’t look down your nose at us, when you are licking the boots of the royals, waving shitty flags and supporting the likes of Johnson or Trump”.
Drums are a highlight – furiously busy and many-armed, but the bass is an ever thrusting shove in the back in the band’s musical moshpit. Guitars are deliberately overdriven and crackling as riffs hammer while every vocal is loud and declamatory. Basically, this band is cocky as hell, pushing to the bar, spilling beer everywhere, shouting at its mates and the album is an energising refreshing wake-up call.
This band must be amazing live….