With their fifth studio album — the lengthily titled Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) — Yves Tumor is uninhibited as they sound off on spirituality and love, bouncing from abrasive to breezy and between the aesthetics of indie rock, psychedelia, post-punk and nu metal (as well as indistinguishable meldings of each) for a glamorous collection that can be digestibly identified as mutation of art rock.
Yves's sound is now at its most difficult to pin down, but Hot Between Worlds still finds them at their most accessible. Bewildering and disparate influences merge to form an agitation of genre, from the twinkles of Halifaxa-era witch house and Strokes-indebted bass notes on the glistening "Lovely Sewer," to the P.O.D.- and Incubus-inspired aughts rock of "Meteora Blues" (perhaps not coincidentally borrowing from the name of the 2003 Linkin Park album) and the outright indie sleaze of "Operator." In context, those influences start to make sense; the album was produced by Noah Goldstein (Frank Ocean, Rosalía, Drake, Rihanna, Bon Iver) and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, the Killers) with contributions from Chris Greatti (Pussy Riot, WILLOW), Yves Rothman (Girlpool, Amaarae) and many more.
But when the artist breaks new ground is where they strike gold — each highlighted track cauterizing freshly severed roots to propagate new growth systems that could one day forge the path for Yves and new artists' experimentation. "God Is a Circle" introduces the driving, cyclical rock 'n' roll bass that remains the undulating breath of the album, carrying rollicking highlights "Parody" and "In Spite of War" to their desired ends, while overwrought celestial instrumental "Purified by the Fire" summarizes the collection in its final act, with the swirling "Ebony Eye" stepping in as the record's curtain call.
The mixed bag's peaks come in the form of the record's recent singles — the cresting, psychedelic "Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood" and bleeding-heart, SOTY contender "Echolalia" — both far-reaching in their experimentations, with the latter interjecting a spoken word interlude that seems to cut to the heart of the record: "If you say you love me and you, like, your happiness only depends on me, it might not be true love. Maybe it's something you need and you want, but you think it's love — it's not love." The tracks stand diametrically opposed, both in delivery and their approaches to God and love, with "Heaven" removing the imagined partner from their pedestal, only for the love to wither and die, not with a bang, but a whimper: "For a moment we became each other / We found a love that made us slowly fall apart."
Generous helpings of angst and spice on Hot Between Worlds make for a raw listening experience, one that does not offer resolution or understanding, but rather a ding-dong-ditch challenge to psychic fisticuffs in the middle of the street.
(Warp)Yves's sound is now at its most difficult to pin down, but Hot Between Worlds still finds them at their most accessible. Bewildering and disparate influences merge to form an agitation of genre, from the twinkles of Halifaxa-era witch house and Strokes-indebted bass notes on the glistening "Lovely Sewer," to the P.O.D.- and Incubus-inspired aughts rock of "Meteora Blues" (perhaps not coincidentally borrowing from the name of the 2003 Linkin Park album) and the outright indie sleaze of "Operator." In context, those influences start to make sense; the album was produced by Noah Goldstein (Frank Ocean, Rosalía, Drake, Rihanna, Bon Iver) and mixed by Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, Nine Inch Nails, the Killers) with contributions from Chris Greatti (Pussy Riot, WILLOW), Yves Rothman (Girlpool, Amaarae) and many more.
But when the artist breaks new ground is where they strike gold — each highlighted track cauterizing freshly severed roots to propagate new growth systems that could one day forge the path for Yves and new artists' experimentation. "God Is a Circle" introduces the driving, cyclical rock 'n' roll bass that remains the undulating breath of the album, carrying rollicking highlights "Parody" and "In Spite of War" to their desired ends, while overwrought celestial instrumental "Purified by the Fire" summarizes the collection in its final act, with the swirling "Ebony Eye" stepping in as the record's curtain call.
The mixed bag's peaks come in the form of the record's recent singles — the cresting, psychedelic "Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood" and bleeding-heart, SOTY contender "Echolalia" — both far-reaching in their experimentations, with the latter interjecting a spoken word interlude that seems to cut to the heart of the record: "If you say you love me and you, like, your happiness only depends on me, it might not be true love. Maybe it's something you need and you want, but you think it's love — it's not love." The tracks stand diametrically opposed, both in delivery and their approaches to God and love, with "Heaven" removing the imagined partner from their pedestal, only for the love to wither and die, not with a bang, but a whimper: "For a moment we became each other / We found a love that made us slowly fall apart."
Generous helpings of angst and spice on Hot Between Worlds make for a raw listening experience, one that does not offer resolution or understanding, but rather a ding-dong-ditch challenge to psychic fisticuffs in the middle of the street.
