after having my fair share of unwound, fugazi, and slint, i found myself at Yank Crime. and… wow. it’s 53 minutes of bulldozing intensity like its title track, “Here Come the Rome Plows“, implies. Yank Crime is the second and final studio album by the san diego-based drive like jehu, released in 1994.
let me be honest: i didn’t properly enjoy this album until i started blasting it at full volume. Yank Crime has a kind of intensity that i first compared to thrash metal, and i was almost tempted to categorize them as metalcore. by metalcore, i mean just the pure definition of ‘metal + hardcore’, not heavily-autotuned melodic metal. listening to the whole thing, you really wonder if john reis ever gets tired pushing out his satisfying, HUGE riffs and if rick froberg (R.I.P.) gets tired of hoarsely screaming to keep up with reis. the guitars on this album (noise included) hit like a tasty bowl of ramen. the rhythm section isn’t anything to laugh at, but it necessarily has to step back to leave room for froberg and reis; mike kennedy and mark trombino have to be restrained so the guitars can be let loose. was it a missed opportunity? perhaps.
“Here Come the Rome Plows” is a very ambitious way to start an album, but it perfectly sets the tone, even if the remainder of the album can’t quite match up to its quality. it’s followed by the epic “Do You Compute”; which brings me to the ‘math rock’ part of this album. yes, Yank Crime makes use of unusual time signatures, but it’s done in a way that’s pretty understated, and frankly hard to notice until you start counting the rhythm yourself. it keeps you on your toes, preventing you from ever getting too comfortable with common time.
by the time I finished side A (“Here Come the Rome Plows”, “Do You Compute”, “Golden Brown”, “Luau”), i was both blown away and getting a bit fatigued from the intensity. was it going to stay the same, or could drive like jehu accomplish something different? that’s where “Super Unison”, “New Intro”, “Human Interest”, and “Sinews” come in: they’re pensive, uneasy, and give the album breathing room. reis still makes his riffs as wild as possible, but this is the shift i think really distinguishes this from metal, and places it more squarely in punk/emo. it’s more reliant on raw emotion and tension than technique and carefully-wrought song structure, intense in a very different way.
the main highlights of this album are pretty hard to name, since every track has its own merits, one of this album’s strengths. but out of them all, “Here Come the Rome Plows”, “Super Unison”, and “Luau” are my favorites. i’ve already discussed “Here Come the Rome Plows” extensively, but “Super Unison” is a song that’s able to calm itself down and still come back to a satisfying conclusion. out of all of them, the gentler instrumental section towards the middle is almost tender. and finally, “Luau” has some of the best noise i’ve heard with some great backing vocals from pinback’s rob crow. this was an awesome listen!
tracklist:
q-street 