"This just ruined my day."
"Thats a little fucked."
"How does a band record an album without their lead vocalist?"
"Yuck... is Daniel."
"Which one is Daniel?"
Just six of the amass of comments on the band's recent facebook post that revealed that Yuck were to record their long awaited (well... 2 years) second album WITHOUT the band's lead singer and second guitarist Daniel Blumberg. When I read this I was perhaps a little less surprised than other fans. I have a bit of a sad devotion to certain bands and tend to check twitter/facebook/instagram pages when theres been silence like a musical progression detective... ahem. Much like when Johnny Marr left The Cribs, the clues were already there. With guitarist Max Bloom in charge of the band's twitter page, pictures of the band's recent activity conveniently coinciding with their profile picture changing from Ilana Blumberg (Daniel's sister/occasion backing vocalist) to the cover of the band's debut album seemed to indicate that Daniel was doing other things (Sherlock eat your heart out!). And so it seems with his recent revealing of his new project Hebronix (see my review of single "Unreal"), and last year's solo outing under the name Oupa, he's not one to linger on the same thing.
The question on everybody's lips seems to be "So whose singing then?". Well as any self-respecting Yuck fan should know, even as a Blumberg-less 3 piece unit the band is not devoid of good singers. Firstly bassist Mariko Doi has been busy between Yuck album's with her side project Parakeet in which she has both sung more that capably and written some insatiably good songs. However I think Daniel's role will most likely be filled in by guitarist Max Bloom. Being the sole musical writer of Yuck's debut album he was the man behind the songs whilst Daniel (in no disrespect to his ability) seemed to just make more of a charming frontman. "Yeah ok but can this Max guy even sing?", yes he can! "Operation" from the band's debut LP was actually the first Yuck song ever made and its many might be shocked to hear its Bloom singing. Blumberg overheard it in demo form and liked it, forging the idea of Bloom writing songs for Blumberg to sing. Its possibly the albums rockiest affair (apart from perhaps "Holing Out") and a promising indication of Bloom's vocal ability as well as a sign that Blumberg's departure wont affect the quality of songs. His vocals are also incredibly similar to Blumberg's, no better or worse, so unless people are really fickle enough to care about the face of a band, I think this next album can only succeed if people are willing to give it a chance. For anyone still doubting the guitarist's abilities, I've included a live performance of b-side "Soothe Me" in which Bloom real steals the show with... well... you'll see why.
Operation with Max Bloom on lead vox
Soothe Me (Bloom on backing vox)
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