All in My Head

“All in My Head” is next. And I’m struggling to write anything about it. It doesn’t have any interesting lyrics, but despite their blandness, they compliment the sound. It’s such a mysterious mix. Theresa manages to sing the same plain lyrics with such varying meanings. It is genuinely spooky and confusing, but it does sound great. Scream it out loud: it’s cathartic, listen to the amazing, classic YONAKA sound and rock, be moved by Theresa’s conviction and power. It just doesn’t matter that it doesn’t make sense. Who cares? It’s not annoying like the mismatch of “Bubblegum”, so why does it matter? I’ve never thought of rock as being particularly lyrical, and “All in My Head” shows that it doesn’t need to be perfectly. If you can do this with poor lyrics, why would you bother? Gladly, YONAKA didn’t take this approach in the rest of the EP though. This inability of mine to analyse it is so different from what I felt when I was struggling and floundering around in my “Ubu” review. That was a limit of my understanding which I was trying to push past. Now, I feel like I have understood the song, but I am being held back by that which I’m attempting to review.
Nevertheless, this limiter is still great. I love to sing along to it and the sound is fantastic. It’s less noisy, especially in the verses, with only the guitar supporting and the occasional synth beat. It’s at the cost of sounding less rock, but that’s okay to me. It starts off with a strumming guitar. It stays as the only instrument all the way up to the chorus, where a bass guitar, some drums and a guitar a few octaves up. The lyrics open and immediately show us the theme of the song: how lost and unstable Theresa is. I think since writing the introduction I have slowly been changing my mind until I came upon a realisation. The more I listen to this EP, the more I think it is meant to have a story across it. In “Bubblegum” Theresa meets a special someone, in “Run” she experiences trauma and in “All in My Head” she uses her someone as an anchor. It seems quite flimsy to me, and it may have been the initial idea for the album before they changed path or something of the sorts. It’s hard to say though. I still don’t think it can be considered as making the lyrics vigourous, let alone acceptable. They’re still poor lyrics, but they do at least make sense. She seeks stability from her lover-which I’m presuming is Mr Bubblegum-but she still acts out. The opening lyrics describe how she always loses control, drinks too much and does things she shouldn’t. “Boys or girls” just emphasizes how she will lose herself to the oblivion of alcohol so quickly, no matter the occasion. The next line may be in reference to how shouts hurt so much when you’re hungover-almost like the sound of an untuned new guitar. The next line creates a rather weird image. “Worth the high” is the opposite of what drugs and alcohol are meant to be. The side effects and price are meant to be worth the high. It gives us the idea that he is meant to stop her from intoxicating and damaging herself. The final line shows how he empowers her and helps her feel better about life, but the choice of “movie star” may refer to drug problems which are tragically common among the rich and famous. The second verse changes tack, to describing how Theresa views Mr Bubblegum. She introduces the verse by creating a contrast between her awe of him and her uselessness. She’s so indebted to him. He saved her life from misery and reckless behaviour, so she feels fully prepared to sacrifice herself for him. The chorus is next. And you really notice it. The drums and guitar kick in. Theresa changes tone. She sounds more distant and echoey and I really like it. She draws out syllables and sings less harshly. The chorus is, once again, fantastic. YONAKA have clearly realized that they can get away with an extra chorus to pad the length of the song if everyone wants it! The first chorus opens with the title of the song. She sings it twice, in self-assurance. She’s not telling him or us, she’s talking to herself. The second time, she even qualifies it, without needing to, showing how she subconsciously knows she’s addressing herself. The apostrophe sounds insincere and this only adds to that effect. The next line shows her frustration in her inability to convince anyone that she isn’t trying to convince herself. The second half of the line describes how she will try to prove it. “On blue”’s meaning is a bit vague and hard to settle on. The three options I have are that it’s a reference to her sadness. She will show you by painting her own story onto the miserable canvas that is her life at the moment. The next option is that she is using blue with the rather archaic meaning of intelligent. Maybe Theresa means that she’s going to explain why eloquently and with intelligence. My final option, and what seems most likely, is that it rhymes with you and through, but doesn’t sound too out of place. It’s the sort of line you don’t really give a second thought to. Theresa then repeats those three lines, but with “to you” instead of “on blue”. This creates more of the same effect as the apostrophe and the qualifying statement. The final line is missing the “through” seen in other courses. This gives us the idea that Theresa doesn’t see how she will get through it even with his help. It also leads into the next two verses very neatly. “Ad-lib” feature heavily in the next two verses, which sounds incredible. The next verse further describes how Mr Bubblegum makes her happy. The first two are quite bland, but I really like the last two. It’s a sweet image, that Theresa’s heart suddenly, loudly and violently burns up all the energy and happiness she has left and needs Mr Bubblegum to fix it and make her happy again. More of the same follows in the next verse. The second line rolls off Theresa’s tongue so nicely. She sings in a way that can only be described as the human equivalent of Pizzicato. I do feel that the final line is really out of place though. This verse is the best of the song and I wish they had closed it properly. The next chorus is the same as the second half of the previous, but with the missing “through”. It creates story, showing how she is becoming more optimistic as she falls more in love with him. I like the post-chorus, but it, unfortunately, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. One of the two lines which are typically refrains hasn’t appeared in the song before and only appears twice-one in each post-chorus. “You make me” what? It just seems a bit weird to me. I do still like it though, as the sound is so good. The bridge follows. The instruments drop, leaving just some synth sounds on the bass line. The bridge is more repeats of the “I know you help me through” line. Here it sounds more grateful than needy. Theresa sounds wistful. She’s thinking about how far he has brought her. She is finally able to fantasise about feeling better and she is so elated by it. This leads into another chorus, which again has the “through”, further reinforcing the idea of mental healing. The instruments drop leaving just the drums for the first half of it, which is a nice touch. This leads into an outro, which is a slightly altered post-chorus, then a mix of the chorus and the post-chorus. It’s not a noteworthy addition, and I’m not enthusiastic about it.
The song is great and merits a listen. It’s not earth-shatteringly remarkable, but it is excellent. I don’t like the erroneous attempts to be part of a grander story across the EP, because it wasn’t the focus of either of the previous songs and is flimsy in this. The majority of the insight I have delivered comes from this assumption and it is hard to justify the leap. It is amazing how far Theresa seems to have come since then, now being a self-built celebrity. It’s quite empowering to think how much improvement is possible and I’m glad she did because the next two songs are just astounding.

Gods and Lovers

So, this is the part where you really get to see why I love this EP so much. Bubblegum was forgettable, All in My Head had lacklustre lyrics and Run was fantastic, but not good enough to make up for the other songs. “Gods and Lovers” is something else. It is wildly underappreciated in my humblest opinion. It is just incredible. Theresa sounds so on point. The guitars are so on point. Everything kicks in so well. The drums sound great. The guitars sound great. The bass guitar sounds great. It’s just a perfect mix of the best of all things YONAKA. It’s very very good.
The song opens boldly form the word go. YONAKA open it with a chorus. It’s stripped back to just have some gentle, nursery-like guitar strumming before the instruments all kick in properly after it’s accompanying post-chorus. Theresa also sounds soft, adding to the nursery rhyme atmosphere. It sets the song up as guidance for youth and as a learning experience. It also creates the idea that it may be more mythological than factual, and the divine reference in the title definitely supports this idea. The song also seems to follow the pre-established storyline, showing how Theresa lost her love for her Mr Bubblegum after he helped her through. The opening two lines are Theresa swearing that she is no longer attracted to or interested by her former lover. She’s truthful and harsh from the start, and this effect is only incremented by the fact that these opening lines are the chorus. The next two lines draw a contrast between her former lover and her deity. This contrast is perfectly set up by the anaphoric repetition of “God”. In the first line, she reveals that she used to revere him as a god, but no longer does and that he is now lonely. She is so savage and so casual. “ain’t the same” sounds so calm and collected. She has become the woman we now know her as. The second line is a reiteration of this. By saying “God has lovers” she states that they are no longer together, by drawing on the contrast between it and “you got blame”. The second half shows that it is, in fact, his fault he has been cast out of her Olympus. This chorus is lyrically brilliant in every way. I couldn’t pick better diction and couldn’t even attempt to fault its placement or melody. It’s amazing. The post-chorus retains Theresa’s innocent voice. The sound is amazing, and I really have to commend the rest of the band for it. The post-chorus is more sound but it doesn’t carry a lot of weight for me. Theresa strains her voice and body to hold those highs and sounds incredible, but she doesn’t sing anything to me. As the first verse starts, the lullaby tone is killed off by the heavy introduction of drums and ad-lib. The first verse is a series of paradoxes-good disease, paws which cut-and it works well. “Blessed”’s use immediately refreshes the religious imagery of the song and also introduces the idea that their relationship wasn’t as it seemed. The pain and suffering made her happy, the softness hurt her. By the second line, Theresa is clearly confused by the state of her relationship. She welcomes the chaotic storms and chooses against comforts. In the second line, I absolutely love how Theresa sings “unlock”. It makes the metre work, both in terms of stress and of length, and it sounds so perfectly YONAKA. Brave enough to do something silly and perhaps a bit lazy with such vigour that it sounds perfect. This leads into our first pre-chorus. The instruments soften and quieten, and brings us back to the start, but this time with an echo of the verse’s instruments and noise. Throughout the song, there is heavy use of anaphora, which creates a sense of cycling, especially with the repeated lines and the placement of the chorus. The looping drums, the structure of the song, the anaphora and the throwback in the pre-chorus all create this sense of looping and iteration. The relationship started with Theresa being in a bit of a state and perhaps not being the best lover, and in the pre-chorus, Theresa is saying that he shouldn’t complain. She didn’t hide what she was at the start and she isn’t hiding it now. Theresa downplays the issues and baggage she carries by attributing it to a single word. The use of “bargained” is particularly interesting as it shows that he is lucky to have got what he got. After all, he’s not a god. The chorus and post-chorus repeat, but with a lot more weight behind them. The chorus explodes in, with a heavy cascade on the drums and guitar. After the end of the post-chorus, there is a bar of guitar and Crosby and Edwards nailed the mix perfectly. It carries the weight from the post-chorus to the second verse perfectly without losing the fire. The second verse is an explanation of why he is deserving of his dethroning. Theresa feels objectified by him. In her mind, all he sees her as is a pretty body to display and show off. Theresa sings about how careful she has to be around him, picking her way through the layers of rubble which are their relationship. He’s under so much strain that his edges are fraying. Theresa uses rhetoric to justify her actions to him. She has taken so much and given so little back, that she has to justify it somehow. The last line could mean one of two things: either that the couple are so outwardly ideological that they are not dissimilar to stereotypical TV romances, or that they are so screwed up that they belong Dr Phil. This leads into another chorus set. The post-chorus ends with the final line having a triple repetition, which leads into a bridge. The bridge is very similar to the pre-choruses, but without the “ooh” at the start of every line. The bridge withdraws that volume again, but it lacks the oomph I have come to expect from these guys in their bridges. The problem is that I didn’t even realise there was a bridge and I don’t think that that is a healthy thing, given the creative potential it offers the band. The bridge leads into another heavy chorus and post-chorus, and then an outro with the same lyrics. The outro opens with an echoey, distant tone. The song finishes with the triple repetition again. Then the song fades into what is a perhaps repetitive end. Essentially three chorus cycles back to back is a bit much, but I think they pull it off.
The bridge is weak, and the ending is repetitive, but it sounds so great in the rest of the song I think that it is more than made up for. I did struggle to get anything out of the song because of its lack of varied lyrics, but I got it done and what is there is good. It is such a good song in so many ways. The blend of quiet and loud, the contrast between the strain and comfort in Theresa’s voice, the perfectly fine lyrics and the amazing instruments makes me wonder why it is so underappreciated. Until I remember what comes next.

Heavy

The reason “Heavy” is better than the perfect mix of the best of all things YONAKA is because it’s so far out of their norm. It sounds excitingly different and it is a contender for the top spot out of all their songs. No wonder “Gods and Lovers” is underappreciated when it is in the shadow of such a beast. The trance this song puts me in is otherworldly to the point where I feel hypnotically compelled to sing the song as loudly as I can. It’s one of those songs I love so much they become an experience more than music. Every listen evokes the same response, just like the first time I listened to it in a passport control queue, next to screaming children and drowning in anger and frustration, imbued in the atmosphere. It just teleported me somewhere else and filled me with bliss. I was so enchanted, and I must have played it about twenty times. I knew all the lyrics by heart almost instantly. I could feel the crowd around me excite as that distinctive, unmatchable opening played. If I had to prescribe one experience for the rock world to all be blessed with, and perhaps even define themselves by, it is YONAKA’s Heavy. This is the first real instance where YONAKA show how powerful and skilled they are. Theresa, George, Alex and Robert are undoubtedly three of the most talented musicians in the entirety of the rock game at the moment and it is obviously only a matter of time before they explode. They have such a wild and varied discography and portfolio that I cannot believe they aren’t so much more. They are incredible and Heavy is so underappreciated. It’s not even listed in the top five on their Spotify artist page and that seems insane to me. Their cover of “You Need to Calm Down” and the Grandson remix of “F.W.T.B” are up there before it and that genuinely pains me. It isn’t their best song. YONAKA have more to offer. Way more. But it’s fantastic and refreshing and beautiful and I genuinely love it. I feel honoured to have found YONAKA before their debut album so that I could fall in love with them and then be able to experience the thrill of ten of the most exciting songs I listen to falling into my playlist (Awake doesn’t count….). The intro bass is so strong and deep. Even without thinking about them, the lyrics feel powerful. Uttering them makes me feel so alive. The verses sound magnificent. The pre-hook is so fucking amazing I genuinely cannot explain myself with mere words. The ad-lib at the start of the second line of the chorus is incomprehensibly good. The hook can make us feel that weight, that heaviness on our shoulders. I feel it. I feel YONAKA straining under it. You know that the song is a call for help to lift the weight off Theresa’s shoulders. This is the culmination of the EP. Theresa is broken and still so burdened. That’s what the bridge is. Theresa can’t think or breathe or act or anything. She can only sing “la”. Because it’s who she is. It’s what she does best. And she truly does it best. Eight of the twenty-eight lines are a triple epizeuxis of “you’re so heavy”. Those eight lines, the thirty-one times she says “you’re so heavy” are some of the most information-rich lines in her portfolio. You can put yourself in her place in that moment. With those three words, Theresa expresses a million. She is astonishing. They all are. They managed to faultlessly sympathize with her and become her for this song. The band managed to conceive the perfect soundtrack to support her. They don’t go wrong at all. They blow you away. It is amazing to listen to. I find it amazing and you should go listen to the entire EP in order so you can feel the journey and understand what the end is. The four have instructed this narrative which doesn’t end in elation, ecstasy or stereotypes. It ends with a crippled woman struggling under the strain of the world and its awful nature. And she does what she does best. She sings and it makes her who she is. This strong icon of rock. The icon of self-worth and identity. She is in a male-dominated market and world, where success is traded for one’s soul. Everyone else successful she sees has sold out, but she stands up tall and rolls her shoulders back. If pop doesn’t suit her, she’ll change pop. And she is getting close. But she couldn’t pick herself up and become complete again alone. That’s what the band fulfilled for her. The other three may not get the laud and attention she does, but they do as much for the band. I get the feeling that music helped her regrow and the band was instrumental in that process. I’m so glad they are here to do this for us all. To uplift and uphold the alt-rock game. They deserve every listen you should be giving them.