Bathing In Afterglow

Glow And Behold may be Yuck's second album, yet in many ways it plays like a new beginning. After the massive success of their eponymous debut which led to riotous adulation on festival stages and abroad, what seemed like a band in control was completely undermined when leading contributor Daniel Blumberg left to pursue his solo career under the guise of Hebronix. The remaining trio – Max Bloom, Mariko Doi and Jonny Rogoff – never once considered downing tools, though.

“I don't really know if it was personal [when Blumberg left] but he had always wanted to focus on his solo show,” Bloom iterates. “It was something that he had figured out, that obviously was driving him, so he left. However, I had a clear vision of what I wanted from the band before he left, and had most of that written; I didn't want to write another Yuck. So this album is completely different stylistically, because I've moved on since recording that first album. It wasn't a conscious decision to change in light of what happened – we had just changed as people.”

Contrary to popular belief, the differences between the last album and Glow And Behold come from Bloom's willingness to push beyond the boundaries of the Yuck of old and were already in effect since 2012. “I'm not the kind of person who gets satisfied by what they've done, regardless of [if] it's done well or not. There was never a sense of looking back to try and make Yuck better; we aren't better, we are just different to what we were before. I really liked [the first album], and it works for what it is: a collection of songs that are excitable and almost naïve. But I wanted to make a record that was a little more in sync, more of a whole piece that you could listen to from start to finish. That was my starting point, to focus on a general vibe or atmosphere that would cover the entire album, and then arranging the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle.”

Glow And Behold is a marked shift sonically, which had some influence by introducing Chris Coady (Beach House, Grizzly Bear) into the studio, an experience that Bloom found daunting and enlightening. “I always approached this as being something we could sequence rather than it be a set of songs that we had written, so I already had a particular idea of what it should sound like,” Bloom explains. “It was never my idea to have someone to come in, so it was difficult at first. I didn't need anyone to come in and change the music, but then that wasn't Chris' role. He essentially became a member of the band. The reason the album sounds the way it does is because the first one was recorded in my bedroom at my parents' house, and we suffered very rigid limitations. Going into the studio allowed us to experiment with things, to get out of my comfort zone a little bit.”