Track Review: Yuck – “Cousin Corona”

[Fat Possum; 2011]

Following rapturous critical plaudits for their debut album and extensive touring throughout 2011, comes a spanking new deluxe double-disk edition of Yuck’s self-titled debut with added tracks. Unsurprisingly neither of the two new cuts differ vastly from much of Yuck’s other work, but when a band is making such an exquisite type of nostalgic fuzz-pop it’s sometimes best just to stick to the winning formula.

Previously Yuck have been pinned as channelling the great anti-heroes such as Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement, and while new song “Cousin Corona” takes elements and tendencies from both bands (and not to mention a tad of The Pixies) it can now be instantly labelled as sounding like a Yuck track of their own identity. All the idiosyncrasies that made the rest of their debut so spine-tingling remain and are used expertly. Daniel Blumberg’s vocals fall on the right side of apathetic and world-weary, and accompanied by an infectious rolling bassline and heavy showers of distortion courtesy of guitarist Max Bloom, this is surely one of Yuck’s strongest and most enthralling songs to date. So what if it’s not groundbreaking or cutting edge? Yuck are gradually forming their own identity and with bonus tracks this strong, you’d be a fool not to be at least a little bit excited to hear their next full length record.

8/10