- Yves Tumor makes a convincing grab for rock star status on this explosive LP, digging into the depths of '90s radio and enriching it with raw, often religious lyrics.
- It took Google searching "how old is Yves Tumor," and seeing both 33 and 53 years old on the same results page, to realise that in spite of how brutally vulnerable the music is, we still don't know much about them—and maybe we never will. "If you just look at the art, you should know what the fuck I'm saying," Tumor, who also goes by Sean Bowie, told Kembra Pfahler in a conversation about performing identities. So far, everything they've said has been spellbinding enough for the mystique to only enhance the character. On their fifth studio album, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), the existential angst explored on previous records doesn't simply boil over, but explodes into Tumor's boldest personal statement yet. Self-analysis approaches self-hatred as they zero in on carnal-love-as-spirituality over stadium-ready songs that are both futuristic and deeply indebted to '90s alt-rock radio.
Direct, sometimes even callous love songs such as these warrant in-your-face production. Noah Goldstein comes correct with Tumor's most accessible sound palette to date, bolstered by the unmistakable guitar sounds of legendary '90s engineer Alan Moulder (responsible for classic records by Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails). Coming off the back of 2021's The Asymptotical World EP, where grinding goth rock and searching basslines swirled with enough vigour to reanimate the dead, at first glance it might seem like Praise A Lord is merely Tumor building on that soundscape. But whether it's the drunken, trip-hop of "Purified By The Fire," or the splaying shards of distorted guitar and manic "Annie Christian"-style delivery on "Operator," Praise A Lord brims with infinite possibility. Ghostly whistles, apocalyptic brass ("Purified By Fire") and twinkling clouds of '80s synthpop (Lovely Sewer") rush past, while even the noisy, ambient haze that enshrouded their earlier works makes a return on "Interlude," before blossoming into the glitzy but brutal indie star takedown of "Parody."
As guitars and synths roar alongside Tumor's yearning wails and manic stutters, it's as if they were using the force of sheer will to break into the heaven they eventually enter on the closer, "Ebony Eye." The distorted riffs detonate like epiphanies over these extravagantly textured productions—think Third Eye Blind or Bloc Party at their prime. The album nostalgically embraces all corners of rock music past with post-punk, heavy metal, glossy shoegaze and more, while still pushing the boundaries a good distance forward. "God Is A Circle" adorns an Arctic Monkeys-style bassline with frantic breathing sounds, turntable scratches and sirens. "Meteora Blues" disarms with its dreamlike acoustic guitars that bloom into cataclysmic electric guitar, while its ambient outro harkens back to "Limerence."
It feels like a lifetime ago that Tumor was Safe In The Hands Of Love. On Praise A Lord, they're trapped in love's gaping maw. There's an underlying scepticism about affection, and Tumor weaponises the unknowable parts of themselves to question the legitimacy of every single thing they feel. In the space of two lines on "God Is A Circle," Tumor goes from labelling the object of their affection a "flawless lover" to convincing themselves that they "might've made it all up in their head."
With an almost masochistic bent, Tumor circles the outskirts of love without ever entering the city limits. Tumor deifying the object of their affection is a recurring motif—they "...pray to an empty sky," longing for acceptance into heaven on "Meteora Blues," and then they abandon all composure on "Echolalia," where Tumor sings, "she looked just like a god." The lyrics on read like pleas for salvation more than they do pure professions of love, pleas that Tumor channels with an astute self-awareness: "Maybe it's something you need and you want, but you think it's love—it's not love,” rebukes the sobering vocal snippet on "Echolalia."
In the same conversation with Kembra Pfhaler, Tumor singled out "Ebony Eye" as their favourite track on the album: "That melody and the way the beat, the swing of the drums and the sample and the guitar all go together, I always loved it. I put it at the end because it’s like the coup de grace, the final blow." The interplay of that fiery, rolling guitar line and those journeying strings—the kind you’d expect on a JRPG soundtrack—is both heaven-facing and apocalyptic, like the end of one life and the start of a new one. Tumor laments their conservative upbringing on opening track "God Is A Circle." Fast forward to "Ebony Eye" and Tumor is taking a long overdue dive into love at its purest, embracing spirituality as a precursor to a divine connection: "I can't describe this glowing light / There's no other way than the pearly gates / I found my holy place."
Discussing their The Asymptotical World EP in 2021, Tumor explained, "I mean that if there is a meteor that’s going to destroy the earth, at least there’s the most beautiful sunset the world has ever seen right before it crushes us. Maybe my album is that sunset." If The Asymptotical World was the sunset preceding the meteor, then Praise A Lord is the big hunk of rock itself. The resulting explosion—in all of its chaotic, god-defying beauty—leaves a fully formed rock superstar emerging from its ashes.
Tracklist01. God Is A Circle
02. Lovely Sewer
03. Meteora Blues
04. Interlude
05. Parody
06. Heaven Surrounds Us Like A Hood
07. Operator
08. In Spite of War
09. Echolalia
10. Fear Evil Like Fire
11. Purified By the Fire
12. Ebony Eye