It’s almost impossible to write about a band like Austin, Texas’s Yard Work without mentioning each member’s previous groups. Still, for the sake of focusing on the task at hand, I’m going to use a phrase popular with your MAHA-obsessed uncle or crypto bro coworker and urge you to Do Your Own Research. After all, we here at One Kind Radio can’t be expected to hold your hand through every step of the music discovery process.
Anyways, on Yard Work’s most recent EP, ‘Not That Tree‘, the band displays an extensive skillset that goes far beyond the horticultural. I was lucky enough to catch them at Milwaukee’s Cactus Club (with a handful of other must-see acts, including Spidora, Laundry Bats, and Lavish Waste), and if you missed the show, I’m sorry to report that you are a grade-A doofus because it was a wall-to-wall banger. Speaking of bangers (get your mind out of the gutter), Aaron Fox is one of rock and roll’s great drummers, banging out primordial beats with such crushing precision that one might think he’s from the land down under—after all, Australia is not just home to kangaroos and Crocodile Dundee; it is also the ancestral home of all Cro-Magnon rock and rollers. In a similar vein, the band’s vocalist, Candi, has such commanding stage presence and dynamic vocal delivery that, if there were any justice in this world, hers would be the first name out of anyone’s mouth before Amyl when discussing the current landscape of S-tier frontpersons.
Then there’s the fellas operating the stringed instruments. I don’t know what’s happening in my head, maybe it’s the Vegemite I put on my toast this morning, but the guitar and bass here are occasionally speaking the mutant language of bands like The Scientists or The Birthday Party, what with Lujan’s stabbing, intricate guitar work and Marsh’s absolutely monstrous Tracy Pew-esque basslines (though, at the show I saw, Marsh sadly hadn’t adopted Pew’s fashion sense and was not wearing a cowboy hat nor a see-through mesh t-shirt). The accuracy of these comparisons notwithstanding, the sound created here evokes a menacing machine (A lawnmower? A weedwhacker?) that threatens to take the listener’s head off.
This indexing of each member’s individual talents fails to communicate that the sound of the group is bigger than the sum of its parts. Moreover, they’ve got songs, and that’s what really counts in this crazy, mixed-up world. As further evidence of this, not a single track on ‘Not That Tree‘ clocks in at over two and a half minutes, though each one is a complete idea and a satisfying listen. More importantly, the record itself is in short supply, as this pressing was limited to an edition of 100. Again, OKR can’t be expected to hold your hand, so I’m not going to tell you to immediately buy this thing before it sells out. Hopefully, you can figure that out for yourself.
Links of interest:
https://www.instagram.com/yardworkband/
https://yardworkatx.bandcamp.com/
