YAANG: Airport Barfight
Out May 24th 2024
YAANG, the socially anxious and delightfully jittery noise-punk band from Manchester, spit out their frenzied new single, Airport Barfight. The track is true to form for YAANG, effortlessly relatable and always odd – the single is another addition to this band’s growing sound in being one of Manchester’s newest, and more interesting, punk bands. Amelia Fearon reviews…
Everyone has their own definition of post-punk, a painfully overused term to describe bands with any kind of spoken or shouted vocals. In my view, YAANG leans more into the punk than the post, with Davey Moore’s bile-spewed vocals —wired and yet, awkwardly intimate, like locking eyes for too long with a stranger on the bus but thinking about it for hours afterwards.
Delivering lyrics rooted in the duality of self-consciousness and manic ego, Airport Barfight marks YAANG’s debut single of 2024. Following a string of nervy releases such as White Socks Yellow, an ode to embarrassing mishaps (pissing yourself) and Too Much Money (a commentary on excessive spending in the shit-show known as a modern England), YAANG approaches their music by simply telling it how it is. There’s no pretence, or attempt to be something other than what they are. Their day-to-day lives are as 20-something year old self-acclaimed social outcasts, with an ability to turn these oddities of human existence into a stand-up comedy set with an out-of-time danceable groove, and it is nothing short of captivating.
Airport Barfight is a gritty, off-kilter anti-anthem, featuring an uneasy bass line, punctuated by glitchy drum machines. The lyrics, “What a fucking concept. Who even has the time to get into an airport bar fight?” demonstrate YAANG’s comedic flair for writing absurd stories. The juxtaposition of somewhat serious punk music with dumb lyrics consistently proves interesting from this band. Each song is another layer to the paranoid psyche, playing into a fun game of trying to work out what the fuck YAANG is about. It’s a paradox of sophistication, it’s sophisticated because it’s not sophisticated. They playfully toy with 80s guitar riffs and drum machines, masked behind a tattered curtain of punk aggro. It’s a chaotic blend of 80s Killing Joke, DEVO, and, then, Viagra Boys— a glorious cluster fuck of sonic nonsense. It couldn’t work for any other band.
Explaining YAANG further on the outskirts, guitarist Oliver Duffy reflects on the song, “The lyrics to ‘Airport Barfight’ are about being at a crossroads in life between clinging onto your early 20’s for dear life, amidst the looming threat of aging into a mature adult. Singing along to an airport bar fight is about watching the world go by around you and remaining a spectator.”
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Amelia Fearon is a creative music writer based in Manchester. You can see more of her work at her author profile for Louder Than War. You can visit her writing portfolio here or follow her Instagram and Twitter at @empireofamelia.
Photos by Cal Moores.
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