Album Review: Yukon Blonde – On Blonde
2 min read
Canadian indie rock band Yukon Blonde are a trio of musicians who emulate all that is underground and happening within the indie genre. On tour different artists join the band, but within their latest album On Blonde we get to hear what defines a Yukon Blonde sound. With a mix of fuzz and funk, On Blonde has a mesmerising sound that is sure to make a splash.
The introductory track Confused has an 80s vibe that is catchy and fun. Make You Mine utilises a more Arctic Monkeys style with multi-layered vocals and a funky beat. Como uses a bucket load of reverb to get a distinctively surf-rock style. Hannah is another good track seems to integrate the strongpoints of these 3 songs. This track highlights the personal and complex nature of the lyrics within the album. The band coherently tells a story and one that ceases to feel cliché or overdone in lyrical form. I Wanna Be Your Man is one of the best tracks on the album that really highlights the vocalist with a falsetto jump. Favourite People is another memorable track that uses a call and response style within a stripped back rock accompaniment.
This style of indie synth-rock is generally a hard genre to get right and cohesively make interesting for a lengthy album. It’s easy for such tracks to begin with a full-on layered sound and not change in any way. This is highlighted in the track Starvation that begins with a dense sound and then is unable to really build to anything. This is the fault of many tracks on the album that disables many of them from feeling diverse and different. Jezebel takes on a more electro feel that strays from this style back to their same old sound.
Overall, Yukon Blonde make an album that is eclectic in its layers and it does tell some interesting tales lyrically. I think the album could use a little more variety as the whole album is this explosion of sound and there is nothing to counteract this. The elements within the album generally stay the same as the band sticks to a familiar formula. There aren’t any tracks on this album that I see as particular mainstream hits but at the same time I also don’t see anything revolutionarily odd happening either.
