Syndey-based alt-popper Yen Strange delivers a consistently alluring mixture, raking through youthful malaise and desperation alike without ever giving into too much self-pity. Much like Lil Peep before her, she’s capable of returning you – no matter how old, and how tired – to the feelings of a raging teenager, and is certain to have you flailing through emotions long dormant within a matter of moments.
With an emotional range and instant catchiness that spirals somewhere between Los Campesinos! and Avril Lavigne at their respective angstiest peaks, she immediately bridges the gap between music for heads and fans simply looking for a quick pop fix.
Her latest, “Go Away”, is no exception, opening with stark strings and her beckoning, wounded vocals, an eerie echo drifting in the background, all before the song plunges properly, building with a fuzzed out riff into a crash of sound once the earworm chorus hits. Getting lost – and losing people (“we could laugh all day / now I never wanna see your face”) – has rarely sounded so good.
Speaking on the song herself, Strange shares, “You know when you think people will be there forever then one day you just don’t think that anymore. It’s so hard when things change. I don’t feel as sick to my stomach anymore when I think about it but I still agree with what I said when I wrote this. There’s those people that you just want to waste every day with, and for a while you do, then one day it’s just not what it was anymore. I don’t want to see them, not because I hate them, but because I’d rather run from those old versions of myself.”
Check out “Go Away” below, as well as its spooky, animated video, and stay tuned for more from Yen Strange very soon.
