You've got to admire this band's work ethic. Coming mere months after their full-length debut Cold Outside Brings Heavy Thoughts to Think, Yourself and the Air's second EP Friends of All Breeds finds the Chicago quintet rapidly approaching maturity as songwriters. Although none of the five tracks come close to matching the teetering, breakneck intensity of earlier YATA highlights like “zZz” or “Fuck You, Walk Home,” their newest EP is easily their tightest and most melodically complex.
All the elements that initially drew me to the band are still present. Like The Pixies, Yourself and the Air are experts at building songs around distinct guitar movements that shift seamlessly into one another on a smooth rotation. Best of all, they do it without sounding like a shallow imitation of The Pixies. Erick Crosby's frantic yelp continues to inject energy and tension into even the most sedate of the band's offerings.
Yet Friends of All Breeds also marks a colossal step forward for YATA. They rely less on the bass-snare dance beats of their previous releases, which frees them up to play around with more complex song structures. Case-in-point is the marvelous “So You've Come Here to Mingle.” The song opens with a gently lurching melody, the rhythm section intermittently dropping away while the lead guitars weave gossamer trails around one another. A chorus of handclaps and “Whoa ohs” segue into a signature shift as the tempo picks up, and finally all the diffuse melodic elements collapse into a blazing punk-battering ram. It's the band's most ambitious composition to date.
Keyboardist Jeff Papendorf returns on this EP, following an almost year-long absence. His contributions remain subtle, but add a necessary counter-melody to Crosby's and Nicholas Sinclair's guitar work on songs like “Less is Less” and “My Friends Are in Love with a Feeling.” Papendorf's presence is most keenly felt on album opener “Heart Strings.” The jingling synth expands the melody laid out by Drew Rasmussen's subdued drumbeat and Sinclair's fragile, high-pitched guitar plucking.
The proximity of Yourself and the Air's releases (three in a little over two years) allows the listener to track the band's gradual evolution, their continual stylistic refinement. If they can keep up this pace and maintain this quality of work, then it's only a matter of time before the world outside of Chicago starts to take notice.
1. Heart Strings
2. So You've Come to Mingle
3. All the Ways
4. Less Is Less
5. My Friends Are in Love with a Feeling
More about: Yourself and the Air
