Sound City Top Trumps 7: Yuck

Sound City kicks off this week, and we're continuing our Top Trumps series with the most interesting bands to catch. Today, London's slacker rock kids Yuck...

Yuck have been greeted with an unfair amount of cynicism since their appearance last year - some say they’re where they are due to superb connections, others say they’re too obviously derivative.

In reality, it’s probably a mixture of both, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Rising from the ashes of indie-pop schoolkids Cajun Dance Party, who got industry types in a bidding war a few years ago, Yuck clearly know how to play the game and have risen pretty far in a short space of time - so much so, they’re high up the bill at this year’s Sound City and getting people rather excited.

Taking their cues from Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr and Teenage Fanclub, the quartet’s catchy slacker pop owes a heavy debt to those 90s lo-fi rock forefathers. Sure, there’s really nothing original about Yuck, but they do what they do impressively well.

Track Record: Their recent self-titled album drew a mixed reaction, but here at Sevenstreets we were rather enamoured with it. They wear their fuzzy 90s influences on their sleeve, and they’re the better for it. 7/10

Live Chops: We’re not joking when we say Yuck are scheduled to play basically every festival in northern hemisphere this year, so if you miss this Sound City slot there’ll be plenty of other opportunities to catch them. Slogging around on the live circuit, however, means the quartet will have had the opportunity to hone their live set into something rather excellent. 7/10

Venue: The Kazimier seems to be the place to root yourself if you want to catch the hype bands this year. It’ll be great for the folkier and electronic acts, but grungy bands can occasionally sound a bit of a mush. That’s kind of the point with Yuck, though. 8/10

Supporting Acts: Electro-pop dude Chad Valley, local electronica lads Capac, and Oxford trio Trophy Wife all feature on the bill. A good mix. 7/10

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