Yautja – Songs Of Descent (Forcefield Records)
For all the attempts at transgressive aethestics that metal and punk can undertake, it’s no secret to anybody with any working knowledge of either that both reward a degree of conservatism. The bands who sell records and draw crowds are often the ones who can most convincingly imitate, or–in slightly more favorable circumstances–put their own spin on some well-worn trope, relevant only in distant memory.
Yautja – Songs Of Descent (Forcefield Records)
For all the attempts at transgressive aethestics that metal and punk can undertake, it’s no secret to anybody with any working knowledge of either that both reward a degree of conservatism. The bands who sell records and draw crowds are often the ones who can most convincingly imitate, or–in slightly more favorable circumstances–put their own spin on some well-worn trope, relevant only in distant memory. An old nemesis of these styles suggests there’s nothing new under the sun, a sentiment with which it’s difficult to argue. But every now and then a band emerges whose DNA seems hardwired in a slightly more mutated fashion, one whose influences aren’t unrecognizable but don’t act as the sole point on which to focus.
Such is the case with Nashville trio Yautja. Comparisons to the heavier Amphetamine Reptile bands (Unsane, Today Is The Day) aren’t a million miles off the mark, though they fail to capture Yautja’s pummeling heaviness, just as placement of their work in proximity to the off-kilter hardcore of bands like Coalesce or Breather Resist aren’t inappropriate but don’t take into consideration the nimble intricacy of what they do. Similarly, neither comparison factors in the band’s willingness to alternate extended, sludgy riff constructions with the sort of minute-long nigh-grind blastbeat workouts that characterize half the album’s songs. The juxtaposition of these styles lends the album a simultaenously cohesive and ephemeral quality, always interesting because it never remains in one place too long.
If this makes the band sound like their approach is all over the place, that’s no accident. But they hardly lack focus. Their impressive ability to incorporate such constant variation, not only within the sort of ever-shifting time signatures that would be tedious and showy in lesser hands, but even within the individual parts, renders their debut full-length a consistently compelling listen across the breadth of its thirty seven-minute span.
Yautja’s music succeeds by walking a fine line that few others can. On one hand, the band eschews any obvious riff construction or any safe reconfiguration of a widely-loved predecessor’s work. On the other, their frantic, dizzying songs refuse to sacrifice heft or to surrender to pretentious displays of technical prowess. In defiance of the obvious, their ability to both draw from some fairly picked-over genres and to internalize these elements into something compelling and visceral places them in a different field from many of their more staid contemporaries, and renders their debut essential listening for those who would seek to escape the confines of safe heavy music.
