Yours Truly have been on the Rock Sins radar for a couple of years now. Their Afterglow EP from last year, in particular the breakthrough single Circles, was one of the finest bits of lighter rock we heard all year. So Yours Truly’s first full length album, Self Care, has been eagerly awaited here for some time now.
Album opener Siamese Souls is everything one could possibly hope for from a band like Yours Truly. It’s catchy, the riffs are big (in a pop punk sense), the chorus is massive, and frontwoman Mikaila Delgado throws in vocal hooks all over the place. Composure, one of the albums’ lead off singles, carries on where Siamese Souls leaves off, with little touches of intricate guitar work woven in amidst more huge vocals.
A short, zippy guitar solo is a nice complimentary element on top of what we’ve already heard on Together, While Vivid Dream flies by in a whirl of drums and bouncy riffs. As an opening run of tracks, it’s going to be hard for any band of similar styles to do better in the rest of 2020. Undersize winds things down temporarily; A semi acoustic number that showcases a different side of Mikaila’s vocals and the band as a whole – an inevitable lighter / phones out moment at gigs to come on the other side of the COVID pandemic.
The second half of the album has plenty about it to enjoy too. Funeral Home is both melancholic and far too upbeat than any song with a title of Funeral Home has a right to be. Glass Houses is relentless, high tempo pop punk with a darker undertone than anywhere else on the album. The subtle twist in the atmosphere around the song is a nice touch, deviating just enough to be noticeable without affecting the flow of the album. The closing Heartsleeve crosses firmly into emo territory with its building vocals and repeated cries of “do you feel anything?”, and may not be completely to everyone’s taste, but as an impactful end to the album, it works very well.
Lyrically throughout Self Care is sharp, hugely relatable and easy to understand all at the same time. Most pop rock / pop punk bands will hit two out of three, but only the best bands in this space can achieve all three. All four members deliver accomplished performances beyond their years, while the production from xxx is crisp, bringing Mikaila’s vocals rightly to the fore but making sure all elements of the band can be heard in their own right. Lazy, stereotypical comparisons with a certain US band from Tennessee feel almost inevitable at this point, but Yours Truly are not another Paramore, they are the first Yours Truly.
Self Care is out now on UNFD. UK and European fans can pick up the album and a variety of merch from the UNFD European online store.
