When first writing about Liverpool’s Yammerer back in 2019, we described single ‘Poisonous Reptilian Colleague’s & Co‘ as “a sonic beast of many heads.” The description was intended as a reference to the specific song’s combination of tones and styles, but the further the band develop and the more music they release, the more the line comes to represent Yammerer as a whole. Even the band’s only true online presence, yammerer.online, is experimental and shifting. Contained, per label Restless Bear:
within its own indeterminate system [which] enables, and highlights, a degree of separation between one reality and any conceptualization of Yammerer. Creating a nebulous space to explore and experiment.
Including ‘Poisonous Reptilian…’, EP Reality Escape Resort further expanded this ethos. Its songs dragged the listener through a variety of post-punk and psychedelic worlds with breathless intensity, the vocals ranging from hyper-zealous to stingingly deadpan. A series of singles followed, from the manic sub-two-minute whirlwind of ‘Boa Constrictor’ to the patient, simmering causticity of ’50 HB’, not to mention the slow-dawning sunbleached richness of ‘The Beachgoer’. Another song, another head. Yammerer a beast with more faces to meet yet.
Ahead of a forthcoming debut full-length, Yammerer are back with brand new single ‘Tell Me What The Ancient Astronaut Theorists Believe’. The record concerns protagonist Jon Vertigo and their attempts to negotiate whatever stage of capitalism we find ourselves occupying now, pushing further into the existential themes raised on previous singles, and ‘TMWTAATB’ throws us right into this tumultuous headspace. Blending the needling menace of Bambara, an exultant energy and their trademark deadpan humour, Yammerer reflect the contemporary moment back at us. Confused, crazed and furious, haunted by the sense the truth is just around the corner, that the future can be restored to what it was meant to be.
Photo by Nick Brickland