CULT OF YOUTH

LOVE WILL PREVAIL (Sacred Bones)

12/20

Much like Danish blog punks Iceage and their hippy-bothering precursors Death in June, the Yoof (as we hope everyone will, from this point on, be referring to them) have been stitching some very sketchy threads into their brand. This works everyone up into a sweat because they don’t know if the Yoof (see, it’s catching on) are fascists or communists or lesbian vicars or gay, black, Jewish boot lickers of the boss of a large corporation and that, quite frankly, is just about as annoying as the fact that Rihanna probably still fancies Chris Brown even though he punched her.

Thought we’d best clear the air before talking music. Love Will Prevail does sound much like the previous COY record did. Like a bunch of landlocked sailors stuck in a forest doing the best they can with a conch shell, a shoebox, some string and a big hollow log. It’s no bad thing though, Sean Ragon’s low, enigmatic vocals give the record its roots and his ramshackle cast of troubadours perfectly compliment his guttural mountain man performance.

The lyrics are typically complex and cryptic, New Old Ways in particular seems to encompass Ragon’s ability to say absolutely nothing whilst sounding like he’s being very profound; just look at this tosh: “never change the old ways/never change the new ways/or the old ways”. It is this sort of nonsensical ambiguity that permeates the Yoof, in music and in brand, and it seems to be the one thing about them that is intensely tiresome. Perhaps if they took inspiration from the ferns and funghi rather than bellowing on about “the golden age” and the perils or not perils of Judeo-Christian Western society, it would be easier to enjoy this absolutely gorgeous collection of raw folk gems.

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Words: Billy Black