Seattle four-piece the Young Fresh Fellows have long blended garage rock, power pop, and indie rock, building a career out of weird references, inside jokes, and offbeat characters. Four decades on, they’re still committed to that same trademark sound.
Loft, the band’s first record in nearly six years, picks up right where 2020’s Toxic Youth left off. In fact, you can even draw a straight line from their 1984 debut to Loft. While the production is a touch smoother, the band has made little effort to sand down their rough edges, sounding just as distinctive as when they first arrived. Thankfully.
Just about any track off Loft sounds like it could have been blaring from a college radio station in the early ’90s or last week, sandwiched between The Replacements and Pixies. After the opening instrumental “Overture,” the band peels into “I’m a Prison,” a frenetic mix of squealing guitars and asynchronous drumming, before shifting into the mellower “Killing Time in Union Square,” a song that is, lyrically, as opaque as a Michael Stipe tune but still undeniably catchy.
“Three Gasconading Saints” is another one of those songs you can’t help singing along to, even if you (or the writer of the song) have no idea what the phrase is supposed to mean in this context. Scott McCaughey sings lines like “Solitude had stepped out / Her face off in disturbance / Leave it to the She-Saints / Flooding the well of turbulence” over a floating trumpet line and marching drums. You could actually be summoning demons, but the song is still undeniably joyful.
They bring in Neko Case to sing on “Destination,” an obvious standout track that hews closer than most here to pop music. The same can be said for “Whispering Hole,” another great song that leans on sax to fill out the guitars, drums, and bass, with excellent results. Along with Case, the band brought in a slew of other fellow musicians to help out, among them Peter Buck, Wilco’s John Stirratt, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, and Morgan Fisher (best known for his time in Mott the Hoople).
The album’s second-to-last song, the trippy “Harpoon in the Hay,” mixes vibraphone and Wurlitzer with sax and the standard guitar, drums, and bass combo for a late-’60s time-capsule feel, with McCaughey’s offbeat delivery heightening the odd lyrics.
Loft is weird, a little messy, and often nonsensical—and that’s exactly why it works. Few bands could get away with this kind of joyful oddness four decades in, but The Young Fresh Fellows make it feel effortless. They may not have changed much, but there’s clearly no real reason they should.
