Album Review: You Already Know - Petrol Money

What's that, You Already Know's second album - Petrol Money - is out today? That can't be right, that would mean I'm incredibly late with a review. Oh, balls. Yes, once again I thought I had loads of time to write about an album before it was released, then got lazy. My apologies.

Now, this is going to be tricky. You see, I bloody love You Already Know. Debut album Stop Whispering was one of my top albums of 2009. I think I've been at every gig they've played in Glasgow since this time last year. The opening track from Petrol Money already made it into my favourite songs of last year. I put it on a mixtape (well, mix CD) and everything. Yeah, it would be fair to say I'm a fan. What's more is that nearly exactly a year ago (Record Store Day 2010, fact fans) I was handed a CD with demo versions of around half this album, so now a year on they've been listened to over and over, giving me plenty of time to fall in love with a lot of the songs here. After all that, can I write a fair review of Petrol Money, or will this just turn into a mildly embarrassing love letter to a band from a fan with a blog?

Can I do both? Petrol Money is, quite simply put, excellent. From the preamble above you could probably guess I'd say that, but I'm not making it up.

The album kicks off with the family friendly Let's Fuck, and instantly makes it's intentions clear. There will be huge, meaty riffs. Drums will pound and cymbals will crash. Things will get loud, make no mistake. Let's Fuck hardly seems like an offer, more like a demand. In case there was any doubt it is followed on the album by Goliath, which is every bit as massive as the name implies. For a moment things almost then get too literal, as The Stride comes along like a big swaggering beast, but that doesn't last long.

Amber Lamps feels like a breather compared to the relentless riffs that precede it. It is still a beast of a song, but one that plays more with melodies, wandering more into post rock territory. There's a return to the thrashier element on The Gush which in both name and song sounds filthy. The Gush probably describes this review too, doesn't it?

Meatshield is probably the pick of the album for me. Clocking in at around twice the length of the rest of the album, Meatshield is less immediate than the full on tracks, and much gentler than you might expect from the name, it is something quite glorious. The extra length allows the song to start off almost stripped back to nothing and slows the pace right down, before building gradually through the most blissful melodies. You know it will explode at some point, and after a few teases it does. It explodes gloriously, retaining those melodies, but allying them a wall of noise and fury that gives me goosebumps. Another change of pace gives a moment to recover, another moment of bliss, as the song builds to a dreamy conclusion. If you only listen to one thing on Petrol Money make it Meatshield. But why would you only listen to one thing?

Into and Over You keeps things a bit more restrained, while It Comes In Waves ends up being almost hypnotic, acting as a bit of gentle foreplay before Business Class rounds out the album by bringing back the noise in riotous style, blending funk, metal, and everything else they can think of until it reaches a furious climax.

Difficult second album? How do you follow a great debut? YAK make it look easy, by simply making an album even better than Stop Whispering. Oh, and once again they do it without a word. By the time you are a song or two in the lack of lyrics is an afterthought. The songs themselves are attention grabbing and engaging, even for someone like me who has spent far too much time learning the words to their favourite songs.

Petrol Money is a loud, shameless instrumental rock album, but crucial YAK know that making this kind of music is no excuse for turning out something stupid. In amongst the bludgeoning riffs there's a perfect understanding of rhythm and melody keeping things balanced and interesting. YAK know exactly what they are doing, and they do it oh so well.

I warned you I liked the album...

Petrol Money is available now, with a launch gig at the Cathouse on April 22nd.

You Already Know: Website - Facebook - Bandcamp

You Already Know - Let's Fuck

You might remember a few weeks ago I mentioned that the brilliant You Already Know are currently releasing a series of digital singles, this is just me reminding you if you've forgotten, and shamelessly pimping them.

The first single, Boomstick, is out now and available here.

The next single, Let's Fuck, is released on November 1st. Have a listen and watch the video below.

YAK : Digital Single 2: November 2010: Let's Fuck by YAKtracks

Return of the YAK

Give me an excuse to reference Mark Morrison in a post title and I'll take it.

You Already Know released their debut album Stop Whispering last year to much acclaim, it also scored a spot in the Aye Tunes favourite albums of 2009. Since the end of last year they've been fairly quiet, slipping out a tour CD and a very limited - and excellent - collection of cover versions for Record Store Day earlier this year. The quiet time has been well spent, whipping second album Petrol Money into shape.

Now that Petrol Money is finished, it is time for You Already Know to make a bit of noise again, something they do very well. Starting in October the first fruits of the second album will be released, under a series of digital singles.

YAK's Allan J Swan says "We have 3 tracks from the album we will be releasing as singles, each in the old 7" vinyl style of A-side + exclusive B-side. For £1 a month from October to December, we'll be offering up the finest instrumental riff-based music Scotland has ever offered up. And with all this being digital, you won't even have to brave the weather to get your fix. It just makes so much sense, i could cry."

The first single Boomstick will be backed with Into and Over You (Naked), an exclusive acoustic version of another album track. The single is set for release by ineedmusik.com in October and will be available exclusively on youalreadyknow.net. You can hear Boomstick below.

You Already Know are also set to make a return to gigging, with a show at The 13th Note on November 12th. Support comes from DeadOtter and Circle of Tyrants. Go.

Best of 2009: You Already Know - Stop Whispering

I slacked off a bit from getting back to writing about my picks for albums of the year, but I'm getting back to it a bit now, starting with this one.

I've mentioned previously on Aye Tunes that instrumental bands tend to be tough for me to get on board with, mainly due to having seen and heard so many rubbish ones over the past year or two. Imagine my surprise then when I fell in love with not one, but two of them over the course of this year.

Stop Whispering is the debut album by You Already Know, recorded upstairs in Avalanche Records in Glasgow. Funnily enough, to me at least, there was a launch gig for it on my 30th birthday.
Words like "epic" and "incredible" are terribly over used, but they do fit the way I feel about this album. The songs hit all the right buttons for me, ranging from spine tingling and melodic one minute, to ear scorching riffs the next, and back again.

It can be hard for me to fall in love with songs without lyrics to latch on to, but with this album You Already Know kick that straight out the window. The way the songs build and climax grab me instantly, and take me on a ride I never want to get off.

Seeing the band, after missing out on several opportunities earlier in the year, last week in the cramped confines of Glasgow's 13th Note showed that not only do YAK work for me on record, but they also, pardon my french, fucking nail it live. My round up of the gig afterwards on Twitter was "You Already Know just had rough sex with my ears, and they loved it, the sluts", which is a very, very good thing indeed.

Stop Whispering is nothing short of glorious, and gives me chills every time I listen to it.
Visit their Website and MySpace to have a listen and find out how to buy a copy.
Also, if you swing by the I Need Musik website you can get hold of the song below and a couple of others for free.

Fireworks For New Beginnings (Alternative Mix)

You Already Know - Website - MySpace

Gig Review: Debutant, Esperi, Panda Su and Yahweh

Amidst the freezing cold winds, pouring rain and general miserableness on Sunday's weather there was one huge bright spot, the gig in The Classic Grand.
If you've been here at all in the last week you'll know all about it, but just in case you haven't, Glasgow PodcART put on a gig with four pretty swell acts. I went, rubbish weather and no money is a poor excuse for missing out on a line up like this -especially since I'd seen none of the acts before, and this is what I thought of it.

Taking the stage first was Debutant, AKA Phillip Quirie. Debutant's first song was marred by technicals issues. Fortunately that was sorted out quickly and the rest of the set, just one man, his guitar and his pedals, provided a fine start to the evening. Gentle and mellow but never becoming samey, up until King of Double Speak provides a surprisingly intense climax to the set. I think this might also have been the quietest gig audience I've ever come across too, as everyone stood (or sat) hushed, listening to Phillip go to work. One of the lyrics from one of the songs (sorry, the title escapes me, help very welcome!) was "You know I hang on every word you say", which pretty much summed up what I thought of Debutant.

Panda Su was up next and after the rotten job I did on her profile piece the other day (sorry again Su) her set was always going to be bombproof review-wise. Luckily for me I don't need to say nice things about it just to make up for being rubbish, since Panda Su were actually brilliant. Joining Su and her regular cohort Red was esperi's Chris on drums and later Jonnie Common, hopping up on stage at Su's invitation. Su promised to keep between song chatter was kept to a minimum, even though there was still more of than you'll get with many bands, due to Su being a bit under the weather, but any illness doesn't appear to have affected the performance. Panda Su's songs have an air of melancholy and fragility to them, but are delivered in a strong, confidence voice that can alternately put a smile on your face and a crack in your heart.
Also, you can't really complain about any band that has a front woman with panda face paint and a song about Prince Eric from the Littlest Mermaid, can you?
There's a little sample of Panda Su's set - Facts and Figures - recorded on the night by Glasgow Podcart here.

Tonight esperi was just Chris Lee-Marr and his selection of instruments, of which there were many. Beginning by inviting the audience in closer to the stage and assuring us he's "not that scary" Chris then abandoned the stage for his first song opting instead to quietly sing Home from atop a table, after which he admitted that maybe he is a bit scary after all. Having never seen esperi I didn't know what to expect from the set, but I think any expectations would have been blown anyway. It was incredibly engaging throughout, enchanting almost. On Cats And Dogs Chris went through God knows how many instruments, looping little bits as the song gradually builds. By my count Cats and Dogs clocked in at around 20 minutes long and throughout the full length never threatened to get stale or boring. It would be easy for this kind of thing to be performed too seriously, but thankfully Chris Lee-Marr isn't just a fantastic musician, he also has a sense of humour, so things never get too earnest. Tremendous stuff.

The final act was Yahweh, playing as a full band tonight, and elevating the noise levels in all the best ways. Main man Lewis Cook is probably sick and tired of people mentioning his youth, but I'm going to do it again anyway. For one so young not only do Cook's songs have incredible maturity, but he's comfortable on stage too. Add into that a tight live band and Yahweh are quite special live. I mentioned in my feature last week that I'm a big fan of the album, Tug of Love, I'm possibly an even bigger fan of the way the songs sound live now. Great songs, great band, great night!

Both Yahweh and esperi are performing at Define Pop 2, I can't wait to see them both at that.
Panda Su is back in Glasgow in December for the PodcART crew's Christmas Party, in a night that I won't be missing. Hopefully it won't be too long before Debutant pays Glasgow another visit too.

Lest I forget, Waves Below did a great job keeping the ambiance going between acts from the DJ booth.

Links: Glasgow PodcART - Oxjam - Debutant - Esperi - Panda Su - Waves Below - Yahweh

Yahweh

It's the final day of the previews for Sunday night's big New Artists gig, presented by Glasgow Podcart. Surprisingly I've kept to my schedule with the posts, although the Panda Su one was written while exhausted after a pair of awful days and was incredibly half arsed. Sorry Su...

On record Yahweh is Lewis Cook, an 18 year old multi-instrumentalist from Moffat, now based on Glasgow. For one so young Lewis is disgustingly talented. His debut album, the bedroom recorded Tug of Love, was released earlier this year and is a fantastic piece of work. It's a proper record of two sides, the first half, Dear Green Place, dedicated to Cook's new base of Glasgow, the second, The Long Plain, to his home town of Moffat.

It's a little difficult to pin down the sound, Cook writes minimalist, alt-folky songs, then adds textures and layers of instruments, occasionally augmented with samples and electronica beats.
All together, it's like a bit of a clash between Arab Strap, especially their first album, slices of Mogwai, and Boards of Canada, without being derivative of any of them.

On stage Lewis is joined by a full band, with Stuart Anderson, Hugh Guthrie and Sadie Ryan helping out. Out of all the artists performing on Sunday Yahweh is the one I have most familiarity with, since I've got the album. However, like all the others I've not yet caught them live. Again just like the others I'm really looking forward to doing so on Sunday.

I didn't have time to ask permission to use this before I wrote the post, so hopefully Yahweh won't mind.
Download Yahweh - Glasgow Smiles Better

If you need any more convincing to get along on Sunday all four artists playing feature on this week's Glasgow PodcART podcast, so you can have a listen.

Yahweh MySpace
Buy Tug Of Love

Huge thanks to everyone that has visited Aye Tunes this week, or helped send people over here. My traffic this week has been higher than any week previously. You will all come back and visit me sometimes, won't you?

Now that I'm done writing about gigs for the week, I'm off out to go to some. I'll probably be taking the weekend off from the blog, but you can email me if you want to get in contact and catch me on Twitter if you have the urge to know what I'm drinking. I'll be back at the start of next week, there's a few EP reviews coming up, and there should be some gig reviews too.