YOURS TRULY - SELF CARE
Self Care is a vehicle of immediate transportation with the year 2007 set firmly on the destination dial. It captures the utter angst, distress and confusion of the emo teen generation, offering a pillow of comfort in a familiar home, and brings it to the present.
Australia’s Yours Truly have catapulted into the punk pop scene the last twelve months thanks to their major festival appearances and their All We Know Is Falling era Paramore sound across EP’s Too Late for Apologies and Afterglow. Moving into their debut album Self Care they have reset the catapult to destruction mode. Caution: Yours Truly are about to explode!
Self Care is a vehicle of immediate transportation with the year 2007 set firmly on the destination dial. It captures the utter angst, distress and confusion of the emo teen generation, offering a pillow of comfort in a familiar home, and brings it to the present. Packed with 4/4 beats, power chords, quirky hooks and generous anthemic choruses delivered by a powerhouse, pocket-rocket of a front woman, Yours Truly have created an album that you know to your core without ever having listened to it.
The first stop, ‘Siamese Souls’, eases in with an acoustic intro before jetting into a momentous scale of towering guitars and earthquake drums for an energetic, melancholic monster of an opener. ‘Composure’, a single from earlier this year follows and is a glorious showcase of Mikaila Delgado vocal range and control. For those that grew up imitating and worshipping Hayley Williams, Delgado is the 2020 answer for the new generation of headbangers and wannabe frontwomen.
On ‘Together’, whilst a hard-hitting jam with soaring guitars and levitating bass, the vulnerability seeps through. This reflective, mental-health check is an indication of the album title reasoning and offers an important message for fans, especially with relatable and refreshing lines like “Clarity / Blur my confidence / My anxieties / They come out when they wanna”. ‘Vivid Dream’ is an extension of this theme but in a more goal driven way with a carefree youthful ‘live your best life’ motto.
‘Undersize’ offers a more playful charm to the Yours Truly name, butterflies and banjos included. It’s a nice change of pace at the right time in the Self Care river and is a wholesome body that dissects how other’s emotional states can inadvertently affect your own. The tide picks up for toxic cleanser and absolute belter ‘Ghost’. This is the kind of energy we need in 2020 and it offers the perfect catchphrase to serve all the haters - “I’m a ghost to your noise”. Living for this!!
The most recent single ‘Funeral Home’ is one of Self Care’s stars for its humongous chorus and completely left-of-field context that is so punk pop it’s perfection! For some Afterglow acknowledgement, ‘Glass Houses’ is your best bet. Sonically it reflects their earlier light and shade dynamic and heavier walls of sound. Slowing it down again we meet ‘Half of Me’, the soul bearing acoustic accompaniment which unpacks long-distance dating. In the most pop punk fashion, Yours Truly close out their album with an electrifying ‘Heartsleeve’ that is the moisturising step to their Self Care routine. It’s hydrating, it’s refreshing, and it leaves you with a stunning glow.
Self Care should be added to all self-care routines.
Tammy Walters
★★★★★