When you’re a young band, especially in Australia, there is a constant struggle around how you are labelled, where your music fits in the scope of genre, and how this affects your music making. Especially if you’ve only put a few tracks out, you, or tastemakers in the industry, will have slotted your band into some sort of category, and this can be pretty consequential when the development of ideas and sounds are so relatively young and fertile – something Sydney three-piece YEEVS know all too well.
Sydney three piece YEEVS shake off expectations with Cycle As The Deal Goes Down. Starring a dancing fan, their manic new video shows the boys are killing it.
The boys have been pretty prolific in their short career, punching out three singles in 12 short months, earning them plenty of buzz around town. They have a name that feels like you’ve heard it a million times before and make music that has the melancholy of Smashing Pumpkins, but it’s buried under a blaring garage thump. Their social media, along with various press, state their sound as sitting somewhere between indie, punk, alternative, shoegaze maybe and slacker rock, which in some way or another it does.
But YEEVS seemed determined to create a sort of synergy with their music; an amalgamation of all they love and all they’ve been labelled to create something that is pure and unhindered. This seems to be their mantra – to break from the mould of “Sydney slackers” and move ahead as they please.
YEEVS’ new video for their latest single Cycle As The Deal Goes Down is as unhindered as you’re gonna get. The track – the first single from an upcoming EP – is more upbeat than their previous stuff, while still retaining a hint of melancholic angst. It features one of the most beautifully choreographed pieces of dancing since Queens of the Stone Age‘s clip for Everybody Knows You’re Insane. Just a dude, some lights, and a mirror (oh and the band in a corner for about 20 seconds). It’s a simple idea and executed without pretence.
The star of the video is Peter David Allison. Peter is an actor by trade and is also a part of the Sydney based avant-garage outfit The Pretty Alice Orchestra. On top of that he is a massive YEEVS fan. How massive you ask? Well to put it simply, the way you see Peter dance in this video is more or less how he dances at a YEEVS show in the flesh. Eye witness reports have confirmed that his presence is batshit crazy. But hey, there’s nothing like losing your shit to show your favourite band some love. Peter’s performance in the video is mesmerising, and it’s success is anchored on how well he can convey his character. The way he carefully applies his make-up, then destructively tears it all off is indicative of the song’s spirit; doing what you love and loving that you’re doing it.
There could be a million elements of genre that be plucked out when listening to Cycle As The Deal Goes Down – punk, shoegaze, pop, grunge, whatever – but the clip does everything it can to subvert that, ’cause in the end, who cares, it’s a bloody good song. Their debut EP How To Harken Back is going to be a super exciting first release because, despite the boys clearly being damn good songwriters, they seem to now have a clear idea of where they want to take their music and why – something a band doing this first EP are generally still trying to sort out – and, by the sound of it, it’s going to be pretty bloody good.
How To Harken Back is due out July 7th. It’s going to be nostalgic as fuck, so make sure you bring your best crying buds and get along to the EP launch at Banquet, The World Bar in Sydney.
