Album Review: Yuck - Stranger Things

The 1990s alternative rock sound is alive and well, and it’s living within the confines of the new album from a band called Yuck.

Who are Yuck?

Based on their name alone, it was enough to keep me away from them for the five years that the have been active since releasing a self-titled debut in 2011. Their frontman, Daniel Blumberg quit the group shortly thereafter, and went on to release a solo project under the moniker Hebronix in 2013—the rest of Yuck moved on without him and the just released Stranger Things is the group’s second full-length effort since his departure.

By all accounts, I should like Stranger Things based on how unabashedly it wears its influences on its sleeve—there are moments where it is strongly reminiscent of the 1999 obscure alt-rock classic, August Everywhere by the Canadian outfit Blinker The Star; and there is more than one occasion where it’s a dead ringer for early Teenage Fanclub (looking at the double shot of “Like A Moth” and “Only Silence,” to be specific.)

Like many records that exist in our modern world, Stranger Things is not a bad, and it starts off kind of strong and energetic with two very fuzzed out jams.

But it, as a whole, is not exactly remarkable, and perhaps that’s because the band is not really bring anything new or invigorating to the sound they’ve worked so hard to create—even when it tries its best to swoon with grandeur (“Down”), when it dips into dream pop territory with “As I Walk Away” and the aptly titled “Swirling,” and even when it plays the shoegaze/Dinosaur Jr card on the closing track, I am still left feeling nonplussed.

One perplexing aspect of this experience has been discovering the real lack of cohesion this record reveals itself to have. There is no real “Yuck sound,” per se, except an overall general sense of nostalgia that comes in different pairings. “The 90s,” as a musical idea or whatever, in the right hands, is more of a feeling that is evoked rather than something you allow yourself to be defined by. In the past I have been pretty generous with my critiques of bands that pay homage to the decade in question—usually I’m able to find something “new” that they are bringing to the table, or at least I tell myself that I am so I can justify the review I am writing.

But here, I’m drawing a blank.

Again, it’s not a bad record, and it’s far from unlistenable. In the end, it’s just the kind of thing that lacks the depth to make a real connection with me as a listener, and will just wind up being one more record taking up space on my hard drive that I listened to in 2016.

Stranger Things is out now via the band's Pledgemusic site.