Yammerer: ESZ

Yammerer are the kind of band that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and demands your undivided attention.

Since their inception in 2018, the ramshackle Liverpool-based concern (Jay Sunsea – vocals; Conchur – bass; Gajo Paco – guitar; Ste Dee – guitar; Brice Wade – drums) have been elusive in principle, for the most part choosing to remain in the shadows (they had no social media presence until recently). Ultimately, it’s where the best work is often achieved, and while these old-world practices are ingrained in the band’s DNA, there’s also a fierce focus involved that results in their sound drastically shifting from one release to the next.

This cross pollinates with the band’s live show, too, and from their array of releases which include the Reality Escape Resort EP (2019) and several singles, you just never know what you’re going to get when confronted with Yammerer. Make no mistake, it is a confrontation, and it’s one where the band continues to move forward with little concern for the consequences.

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Yammerer’s watershed moment came during lockdown with their blistering single, The Beachgoer. The biggest leap the band had taken at that point, The Beachgoer was a jaw-dropping crusade that felt like the worlds of noise-rock and psychedelia finally found purity together.

The Beachgoer reaffirmed the band’s maverick tendencies, and led by the loose cannon that is Sunsea, Yammerer’s hazardous nature continues with their debut full-length, ESZ – an album that is the embodiment of the Yammerer remit.

While many associate Yammerer’s piss taking antics as one of their most potent weapons, they are far more serious than that, and it’s evident from the outset on ESZ with album’s first of six movements, The Burrow. “Trying to make poorest of the poor poorer,” cries Sunsea, his voice oozing through the speakers like a weeping wound. The performance equals the weight of his words.

This is a band deeply connected with the despair this world has to offer, and through a protracted psych-rock hybrid that fries the nerve endings, Sunsea proceeds to unfurl a tale that is like reading Michael Heer’s Dispatches on an acid trip. The protagonist, a bloke who takes cyanide, likes the taste of apples and flails machine guns out of helicopters. A living nightmare through the lens of a tortured soul, searching for, indeed, that reality escape resort.

Unknown Hand (L) is the next movement. A wonky spatial jam that flirts with the ether, whether it’s a recurring character from the preceding passage is open to interpretation, but here we find them wandering out into the public domain, reading papers backwards and observing the dull reflections of the same reality they are trying to escape from. (Alas, in this instance there is no resort.)

Melding together Merseyside’s lust for Pink Floyd and the absurdity of Thee Oh Sees, RV Wooden Star and Moon x 2 are mind-mangling wig-outs that continue Yammerer’s shapeshifting practices. A catapult into orbit, purely locked in the groove with sinewy guitars and gadget wrangling noise that not only bastardises the blues but aims to destroy them.

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Still straddling the orbits, Unknown Hand (R) is like a deep echo from a k-hole. Shuddering in fear from Dee and Puco’s walls of white noise, Sunsea’s abstract musings go beyond those of The Burrow. “Coming out of the arse-end of a head wobble,” he laments, launching into a monologue not limited to what pro-nouns make you feel comfortable, international values festivals and listening to adult-orientated rock music.

It reaches a crescendo on SSDD. Another hallucinogenic rumination, this time about heroes and a certain Liverpool venue, that feels reminiscent of an incident involving the band’s glorious four-minute performance during the city’s Threshold Festival in 2019. Involved in a set-to with the sound engineer, the resulting crash, bang and wallop not only encompassed the debacle said festival was, it also framed the shambolic glory of the Yammerer experience.

This carries through with ESZ. Whilst psychedelia is a loaded term, Yammerer just about catch it flush, drawing from so many elements where everyone from the hippies and the bikers to the punks and acid-damaged Floyd disciples will find their senses well and truly overloaded. It shouldn’t be a surprise that Yammerer are the band to shepherd these forces. With a wild mosaic of sound, they’ve been threatening to deliver something like ESZ from the off. Thankfully they’ve finally emerged from the storm’s eye to deliver it.

ESZ is out via Dockland Speed Shop Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.