There’s a point on Devastations' latest release, Yes, U, when singer/songwriter Tom Carlyon quietly sings, "I’m so interested in life" in a morose mumble. In some ways, nothing could be more true; the Australian-born troupe seems fascinated with how their songs breathe, walk, and think. And yet the entirety of Yes, U feels preoccupied with death, as it drags along underspoken basslines, while Carlyon and songwriting partner Conrad Standish croon about loss, anonymity, and relationships. But what’s truly astounding about the record is the way it embodies the human spirit.
You won’t come to this realization until the bombastic “Rosa” jolts your attention away from your daily internetting and toward its cacophonous mass of feedback and percussion. The track nonchalantly walks along Conrad’s sinusoidal vocal lines until a shrill cry sears through the background and Devastations hit a jack-hammering groove. Something about the track’s sudden change in tone screams of the human experience — for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction; you can’t understand good without evil; and so on.
Although this dichotomy doesn’t exist as strictly on other individual songs, Yes, U as a whole is constantly fighting this tension. “The Face of Love” is a delicate piano ballad that sits upon synth strings and a lightly plucked classical guitar. The track’s soft, sing-along chorus recalls the delicacy of human interaction and love. But the tittering hi-hats of “An Avalanche of Stars” following “Face” sound ominously like Joy Division’s moments of self-deprecation and self-doubt.
What Yes, U is lacking is a triumphant, humanistic high. For all of “Rosa”’s human energy and uplifting spirit, it also boasts an otherworldly feel, hinting at detachment rather than joy. The album’s closer “Misericordia” (note the fatalistic track title) is the perfect denouement to a life fully lived. It’s all distorted piano and wavering feedback sound, like the dizzy loss of memory and self before your eventual demise. It stumbles along until it finally passes in one feigning keystroke.
From the disc’s opener “Black Ice” — a track that waits until the syncopated percussion begins to truly get going (a virtual birth) — through the aforementioned demise on “Misericordia,” Yes, U attempts to embody the essence of human life. It traverses both joyous and heartbreaking experiences through musical epigrams and precise instrumentation. And though it can’t be said to be entirely human, it sure as hell’s got soul.