Loosen Up and Empty Out Your Head: A Review of Yabadum's "Yabadum"

   Here's a couple of things that happened when I went to see Yabadum live at Funkadelic Studios:

   1) Three men well over the age of sixty were smoking weed in the men's room.

   2) Some kid with an afro, who couldn't have been over four feet tall, was the one starting all the moshing.

   3) The band had some kind of makeshift roadie, who danced in the corner behind the drum set for the duration of the forty minute set.

   4) I wore all black, which was a bad idea, considering we were in a room with about fifty people which was only supposed to hold thirty.

   5) I got to see my new favorite band play my new favorite album in it's entirety.

So why is Yabadum my new favorite band? And why is Yabadum my new favorite album?

Well....

Because the music is amazing.

Unlike countless New York bands, that are making music based on lo-fi indie bands from the 90's, or the wispy dream pop of the C-86 era, or just lo fi noise overall, Yabadum get their influences from elsewhere. They are kids who obviously grew up listening to Is This It and Bitte Orca instead of Alien Lanes and Psychocandy. They bring back the sounds of bands like LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Interpol, Arcade Fire, The National and Sufjan Stevens.

Indie music obviously isn't what it was back in it's excellent early to mid 2000's run. Back when The Strokes, Interpol and The National owned New York, Bloc Party, Franz Ferdinand, and The Futureheads made the U.K. their stomping grounds, and when Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade were the best thing coming out of Canada. But then in 2008, no-fi and lo-fi became the new "cool" thing, and many of these bands lost their footing. LCD Soundsystem broke up, Interpol have been on indefinite hiatus, Yeah Yeah Yeahs have ceased doing everything that made them great, and The Strokes are trying to convince themselves that they're still relevant.

But how does this relate to Yabadum's Yabadum? Because Yabadum feels like one of those good old NYC indie records. One that you could throw on in your apartment party in Brooklyn, after you and your guests got tired of listening to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah over and over again. Or that record that you listen to while walking through Park Slope in the Spring. That kind of album.

The album starts off with "Winter", which begins with keyboardist Charlie Schine playing a cabaret/baroom piano line. Then lead singer Laszlo Horvath comes in with some "doo-doos" and "da-das". Then Will DeHaven's drums kick in and guitarist Chris Rivera plays a distant guitar line, that grows throughout the song into a great solo. What's so surprising about "Winter", is how fleshed out of a song it is. It goes from 4/4 time to 6/8, while the band rushes along, and Horvath's voice soars and croons over them. "Winter" works great as the opening track with each member of the band showing off what makes them great. Especially Horvath's voice which switches from baritone to tenor to falsetto flawlessly (my favorite point is when Horvath sings "sit still / AND SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!").

The album than moves onto it's first single, "Cosmos". It contains jerky guitar, bass, drums and keyboard. Throughout "Cosmos", Horvath's lyrics are pretty abstract, but sometimes they come off as self loathing ("look at me, I'm such an animal, I'm incomplete", "I turned myself into a monster and scare myself to bed"), and he also seems to be questioning why "the cosmos never let us settle down and rest". But than comes the lyric that can perfectly sum up Yabadum: "loosen up and empty out your head". It's an invitation to dance. And boy, do I dance when I hear this.

"Me All Mighty" is the next song, and it's almost reminiscent of The Killers circa Hot Fuss, with the way Horvath sings and the keyboards. Following "Me All Mighty", is "Little Rooms", one of the album's best songs. In it, the lyrics seem to be addressing how mundane life can be with lines such as "it starts again, there's another one, the days all seem to blend this time" and "yeah I got a brand new suit, a window in my office, I can see all these people, obsolete." The song features an organ, and MIDI-drums, and a guitar that isn't showy but does the trick. At the end of the song, the band descends into an Okkervil River/Titus Andronicus shout along and the real drums come in and crash away. It sounds like it would have been a lot of fun to record a song like "Little Rooms".

There's the next album highlight, "The Mountain Man", but before it is the album's only interlude, "Lonly". "Lonly" features that cabaret piano again, and there's chatter over it, similar to the kind that popped up all over Tame Impala's Lonerism. "Mountain Man" is just a straight up crescendo, starting with just Schine's keyboard plinks, some bass and Horvath's voice, in which he sings about "the Mountain Men" who play "hide and seek, a dangerous game". The band steadily gets louder until the end, when all the band crashes along and sings "so tumble backwards (tumble backwards!)" and "da-da-da-da". It's at this point where the push pit starts.

So what's the overall topics of Horvath's lyrics? Two perfect examples are the last two songs, where he sings about love and life. In the accordion laden, acoustic shamble of "Swift Buck", he begs someone not to run away from him. On the final song, "Earth It Shakes", the drummer takes a break, Horvath picks up and acoustic guitar and Rivera breaks out the singing saw(!). "Earth It Shakes" is the most emotionally potent song on the album, with Horvath wondering about his friends and why he even talks to them before asking "who am I?". Then he starts singing the chorus of "Cosmos", and the rest of the band sings with him. It's a truly beautiful moment.

So maybe I'm a bit biased. After all, I went to middle school with the drummer (Will! I voted for you to become class president in seventh grade!) and the guitarist sits behind me in my math class. But Yabadum is a great piece of music, especially considering the members' ages (15-16). Young bands can make a lot of mistakes. But they could do great things. Look at Iceage and Odd Future.

So don't screw up guys...

because I want to see you go far.

Yabadum - Yabadum
9/10
Recommended Tracks - "Winter", "Cosmos", "Me All Mighty", "Little Rooms", "The Mountain Man", "Swift Buck", "Earth It Shakes"
Download the album here.