Countdown: 10 for ’11

Countdown: 10 for ’11

#1
Yuck
Yuck

Yuck
Yuck
Terrible name. Terrible album cover. And possibly one of the best albums of the past ten years. Where do they get the balls to give indie rock back its… balls? Is that distortion on those syrupy sweet guitar hooks? Is that barely-legible harmonizing hiding behind walls of heavenly pop sounds? Is that some musical muscle behind twelve tracks of romantic indie notions? No idea, yes, yes and yes.

This English foursome managed to time travel to the 90s and cherry-pick all the best parts of all the best bands and genres and combine them into one hair-blowing, mind bending debut album. You can hear Dinousaur Jr, The Posies, Radiohead, Seam, Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo, alt pop, alt rock, Brit pop, shoegazer, indie pop, classic rock, grainy rock, glassy rock and any rock you can skip across the water that constitutes the halycon days of your fondest music memories.

Yuck is a retro-sized ripple in a deep sea of wrecked indie ships and soft rock driftwood. Their eponymous debut is the coming tsunami. Drown in it.