Though Yuck has been a band for less than a decade, the London-based garage-pop outfit hasalready managed to cram what feels like a lifetime of Behind The Music-worthy experiences intotheir backstory. Formed in 2009, when most of the band members were still in high school, thegroup quickly garnered attention for their early singles (2010’s “Georgia” being a standout) andin 2011—after having already toured with the likes of Tame Impala—they released a self-titleddebut album (the gloriously fuzzed-out Yuck) to critical and commercial acclaim. This earlysuccess was followed by the departure of founding member Daniel Blumberg in 2013 and theinduction of new guitarist Edward Hayes. The band promptly got to work on a sophomore album(2013’s Glow & Behold) in upstate NYC whilst overcoming the anxiety of a lineup change andthe realities of a bug-infested recording studio. As rock and roll stories go, theirs is not anuncommon one—or even an outrageously dramatic one—but for frontman Max Bloom, thepath has felt almost comically arduous. “It’s so cheesy, the whole thing,” he says. “Being in aband really is like Spinal Tap. There’s so many situations in music rockumentaries that actuallyecho my life, it really is a giant cliché.”Cliché or not, the path that Yuck has taken has seemingly all been leading up to the band’sexcellent third album, Stranger Things, a record brimming with manic energy and pop hooks fordays. Released online last summer, the record’s first song “Hold me Closer” is a visceral primerfor what the rest of the record has in store. “I remember the first couple of songs that startedthe record off, I basically wrote one morning when I was very high on coffee,” says Bloom. “Iguess it set the tone for everything that came after that.” To that end, tracks like “Cannonball”come ripping out of the gate with the appropriately buzzed-out guitar sound that made previousYuck tracks like “The Wall” such epic jams, while “Yr Face” could be a long-lost lover to an oldDinosaur Jr or Built to Spill record. Stranger Things is a remarkably gentle record as well, withtunes like “Swirling”, “Like a Moth”, and “I’m OK” addressing the fears and uncertainties thatfollowed the band for the last few tumultuous years. “‘I’m Ok’ is a very personal song becauseit’s just about the anxiety I’ve been feeling over the last couple of years. It’s very cathartic towrite about in a song, but definitely not easy to speak about,” says Bloom. “It felt importantwith this record to deal with a bunch of that stuff, clear out the past, and make a fresh go ofthings.”Recorded in London over the course of several months at the band’s own pace, Stranger Thingsreflects the refreshingly un-fraught state of affairs within the group. “The band feels better nowthan it ever has,” says Bloom, “We recorded the drums in a rehearsal studio by our house, whichwe’ve rehearsed at for ages. Everything else was done at my parent’s house--in the same roomwe recorded the first record, which wasn’t an intentional thing. It’s just the only quiet space thatwe have access to in London! Mostly I wanted to make the in a space that I was comfortable in. Iwanted no one else involved--just me and Ed and Mariko and Johnny—and to just do it in a waythat suited us and not have other people there messing with our vision or whatever. I justwanted to get on with it and make something that was truly us and not affected by any outsideinfluences. We basically spent no money on the record and it was a really relaxed way of doingthings. I really, really like it. I’m more proud of it than anything we’ve ever done.”

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