YELT - Conquer The Rot EP

Labels: Self-Released

Formats: Digital

Release Date: 21 Jun 2018

Tracklist:

1. Halloween Finger

2. Pile Drive

3. Squirt Don't Hurt

4. Crotch Rot

5. Fuck Community

I've been catching up on some much needed blog admin this morning (yawn) and I've also been trawling the web for obscure punk because I'm that way out. What I've found is that there's a glut of it on bandcamp so I thought I write about one such band this morning (and maybe another later if I have time). YELT is a band from Glasgow for which I know very little. "Conquer The Rot" is the band's second EP, following their 2017 tape "Wrong Hole". YELT plays a sludge/noise/punk kind of hybrid.

This is way heavier than expected. Halloween Finger kicks off with a wall of riffs and noise. It kind of reminds me or early AFI but with less melody and more feedback. The vocals are shouty, the tempo is mid-paced and the bass is heavy. The recording is cool because it’s got dirty, snotty UK edge to it. Pile Drive is spot on. From the buzzing bass to the guitar that pretty much lords over the rest of the music, it’s awesome. YELT fills Squirt Don’t Hurt with all kinds of strange guitar-based noise, turning it into a weird mix of heady psychedelic sludge and bruising rock n roll. It’s instrumental first half is replaced by snotty punk again in the second half. 

The sludgiest number on “Conquer The Rot” comes in the form of Crotch Rot (awesome title by the way!). I guess by now the punk descriptor may be considered redundant, but it’s still there. The song’s urgency is great and it leads you into EP closer Fuck Community perfectly, which is equally as horrid sounding (in a good way). The mix of up-tempo kicks and slow down tempo percussion with the dual-vocals make for a stark mash-up of styles but it all works. Call this what you will but punk comes in many forms and while this particulate form is slower and heavier than you might have expected, it’s still great and YELT deserves your attention for.

You can stream "Conquer The Rot" and grab it as a name-your-price download below:-