SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: YVES TUMOR – PRAISE A LORD WHO CHEWS BUT DOES NOT CONSUME (OR SIMPLY, HOT BETWEEN WORLDS)

Yves Tumor
Praise A Lord Who Chews But Does Not Consume (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)
Warp Records

With each album, Yves Tumor (real name Sean Bowie) has hinted at a cyclical pattern: constructing a sound you can almost label their signature, just before they snatch that certainty from you to leave you in the ambiguity of whether it all happened. The plunderphonics of earlier, more disruptive works (‘Limerence’, Safe In The Hands Of Love) seem distant on Hot Between Worlds. Instead, there is a fully-realised rockstar appeal to the once abstract figure of Yves Tumor, centering on an incarnation of Sean Bowie that croons nihilistic lyrics with the warm vocals of an indie heartthrob – an unexpected combination for a new benchmark for rock’s future.

Though tracks like “Heaven Surrounds Us Like A Hood” and “Parody” are glorious in their own right as reverberations of the 80s new wave, the main joy is seeing Bowie add their own nuances in tribute to the alternative rock music of the 2000s. For example, “Lovely Sewer” sees Bowie shining alongside Egyptian-Italian artist Kidä; their sung exchange paralleling all the sweetness of Peter Bjorn and John’s “Young Folks”,  but their poetry trading Swedish nostalgia for gritty heartbreak and loss. Later on, tracks like “Fear Evil Like Fire” live and breathe the garage atmosphere of NYC bands Interpol and The Strokes, but exhibit such ethereality that transcends any idea of human performance. It is these songs that hypnotically warp the reality of the tropes of Bowie’s predecessors, and which we hold onto long after the album finishes.

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