Skip to content
Hi Sorry State readers! Hope everyone is having a nice start to the fall or whatever season you are experiencing. We’ve had some lovely evenings. Around late September is when we begin our summer by day and fall by night period. I will take it. Anyway, nothing too exciting on my end. Just getting hyped to see some cool shows over the next couple months. Especially the Sorry State 10 year anniversary fest! It’s gonna be so sick. Try to make it if you can. So many bands for a pretty good deal! And other fun things sprinkled in over that weekend. It obviously wouldn’t be a proper Sorry State celebration without an extra sick used records drop. That’s what attracted me to the store and what kept me coming back again and again and again. I’m sure it’s the same for a lot of you locals!
I feel like I’m kind of cheating with my staff pick today. It’s the Yambag cassette: Mr. Ed. is Dead Again. It includes Yambag’s debut LP Posthumous Pounce and their Strength in Nightmares EP. I feel like I’m taking a shortcut because I wrote about the latter EP in a staff pick sometime last year. Wait, no, make that twice! Uh-oh. I also included it in my end of the year wrap up this year as one of my top ten releases of the year. It was actually in my top two or three favorite releases of 2022! At the time I am writing this we still have a few in stock, but my apologies if it is sold out when this goes up. I hate when I do that, or when someone does that to me. The nerve! The good news is that we should still have some of the second pressing of Strength in Nightmares available on red vinyl (Note from Daniel: JK, we’re sold out of that one! Sorry!). And it’s a really good red. So you could still acquire half of the contents of this tape. I was introduced to Yambag through that record and then I went back and to listened to Posthumous Pounce. I was not disappointed. This tape should not to be confused with Mr. Ed. is Dead, which is from 2018 and includes some tracks from their LP, but it’s a pretty raw recording. I don’t think it was ever put out on physical media.
Anyway, I guess Mr. Ed. died again, and that’s how we got here. Quickly, the band hails from Cleveland. While Cleveland hardcore is known for a particular type of intensity and angst, I think Yambag brings a little something different. It’s not as metallic as Cleveland predecessors like Integrity or Ringworm. It’s still intense and aggressive, but it’s more manic. It’s also just faster. The drums are super speedy and powerful, but they do weirder stuff with their guitars, and the vocals are more fun. I don’t want to say the word sloppy because the vocals are not sloppy at all. More like purposefully snotty. They say “blech” here and there and that really adds something to the sound. It’s very Cleveland to be disgusted by something and to communicate that. I love looser spastic vocals paired with very tight instrumentation. All in all, I love the speedy drums, the stop and starts (for a lack of proper terminology), the unanticipated bass melodies, and the brief tempo changes that provide some good mosh-worthy moments. If you want a track that does all of those things with a killer breakdown, Lowlife on Strength in Nightmares is the one. I believe it’s a cover song.
Posthumous Pounce is Yambag’s full-length record (2020) with 16 in your face, fast as hell tracks that are aggressive and antagonistic but again, fun. Along with all the tough-sounding adjectives, the music and manic and explosive. The songs Dog and (O)possum are my favorites on that one. Every track on the LP is actually named after an animal, and I guess the plan was for the singer to wear a mask of the appropriate animal for each track, but it was just too much damn work. You can imagine. After hearing the record, you know they don’t need extra theatrics because the songs stand alone quite strongly on their own. Cleveland hardcore is known for having a serious type of intensity to it, and I like that Yambag doesn’t seem to take themselves too seriously. And that their musicianship is still fantastic. Looking back, I think their first record laid the perfect foundation for Strength in Nightmares (2022). The newer release stays the course but with better production. The drums are fast and furious, but I don’t think Posthumous Pounce does them the justice that way that Strength in Nightmares does. The recording just wasn’t as good. What’s funny is there is a quote on the Posthumous Pounce side of the tape taken from MRR’s review and it reads: “They are kinda recorded like shit in the most endearing way.”
Strength in Nightmares really sealed the deal on their fastcore classification, but I really like both releases, so it’s super cool to have them on one tape. It also sounds fairly cohesive for being two different records on one tape. Anyway, Yambag quickly became one of my favorite hardcore bands and I can’t wait to hear more from them in the future!
Thank you for reading! Until we meet again.
Thanks,
Angela