Five years ago a band called Cajun Dance Party appeared, made an interesting album between their GCSE’s and A Levels, then faded away. Now, guitarists and vocalists Max Bloom and Daniel Blumberg are back, in the guise of Yuck. And it seems that they have done their university thesis on Alt Rock.

They’ve certainly been learning. The appropriation of Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr. etc. is spot on: the album grinds guitars when it should, bounces along on basslines when it can, and glides along on exquisite vibrato at its best. At times you can imagine the band abandoned guitars and just taped the noises their younger brothers made as they mimed along with their tennis racquets, the sound is that well captured.

This is not a copycat approach, though: the band are determined not to be overly pretty when they drop the scuzzy effects, and the delivery is never, ever, ironic or sneering.

Admittedly rebooting a very American sound doesn’t always come so easy, ‘Operation’ for example shows a rare heavy touch. At the other end of the spectrum, ‘Shook Down’, despite its druggy imagery, and ‘Suicide Policeman’ come across as a little twee. Maybe shades of Cajun Dance Party? It could be the band’s attempts to stamp their own identity on the musical territory – either way these are minor issues. The most interesting parts of the album are those slow songs with elegantly frayed guitar, and a downplayed sense of the redemption rock ’n’ roll can bring, as on ‘Suck’, where the guitar celebrates when ‘Everyday was a Christian holiday’.

Undoubtedly the album can be classed as derivative, but it also happens to be a set of catchy, melodious, messy Alt-Rock that we haven’t heard in a long, long time. JM