Yorkshire Fields - I Heard You Were Looking for Me (2014)

Yorkshire Fields are back with a successor album to last year's Dummo that got it a spot on an early episode of our podcast. That album was written up by Elvis, and I avoided re-reading it until I had heard the new album so as to minimize how it may steer my opinion of the new album. The first thing I was struck with after hearing I Heard You Were Looking for Me and then looking back at what Elvis had said about Dummo was how they hardly seemed to be referencing the same band at all. 80s electro-rock seemed to factor in a good deal with how the first album sounded, something that delighted Elvis and is still a fine set of songs to listen to. However, it seems like have decide to change the style considerably with their new release.

For those of you hoping for more synth-driven 80s throwback sound, you'll have to go looking elsewhere, as the new dish Yorkshire Fields is serving up is temperamental dream pop with a light dressing of surf. Their are two singers that switch between the duties of lead vocals in the album, one male and one female. The male singer use a modulation that does preserve a bit of the synthetic quality of the prior album, but not to any overpowering degree. All the tracks have a nonuniform lo-fi sound that is vaguely grouped around a dreamy sort of feeling, but more or less guitar and percussion allow the songs to take on considerably different tones. Even parts of songs can have greatly different affectations,and the final songs get damned near actual space rock. Yet I found it's the singing on majority of tracks with the female vocalist that really stole the show for me. "Tire" and "Piltdown Hoax" had mesmerizing effects on me, requiring a good deal of re-listening. They're insanely catchy and her singing ungodly alluring to the fan of lo-fi vocals, even if they are understandable unlike much of the singing I praise. A wonderful follow-up album can be heard with I Heard You Were Looking for Me and I sure would like to see if there's more metamorphic albums to come from Ruston, Louisiana. 

To be had here:
Yorkshire Fields - I Heard You Were Looking for Me