If there’s a appropriate method to say the title of Yves Tumor’s new album, Reward a Lord Who Chews However Which Does Not Devour; (Or Merely, Scorching Between Worlds), it’s with out stopping for breath. Strive it, and take note of the heaviness of the subsequent out-breath, how fast it’s to depart your physique. You need to earlier than you even contemplate the that means behind that lengthy string of phrases, which tease out among the album’s themes however shouldn’t be handled as greater than a poetic evocation. Scorching Between Worlds is the very first thing you are feeling proper when it kicks off; individuals will level out the scream that opens ‘God Is a Circle’, however driving the tune is a relentless, mechanical panting – nervous, sinister, keen, or ecstatic, it’s not clear, even because it’s the identical sound that loops over. Within the lyrics, Tumor drifts between self-conscious introspection (“There’s locations in my thoughts that I can’t go/ There’s individuals in my life I nonetheless don’t know”) and an otherworldly type of pleasure (“I really feel like I’m fluorescent holding you”). This is likely to be their definition of heaven, but it surely’s no resting place.
Tumor has developed from experimental sound collagist to glam-rock star, however whilst they’ve develop into extra “hook-focused,” because the artist lately instructed Courteny Love, the sensual, elusive, and divine qualities of their music stay at its core, interacting in wealthy and fascinating methods. Reward a Lord will not be a drastic shift from 2020’s glamorously theatrical Heaven to a Tortured Thoughts, but it surely carries its creator’s boundless imaginative and prescient with the identical urgency. Tumor is a grasp of pressure and launch, and on Reward a Lord, they linger within the area between the 2 in a means that feels bodily extra than simply explorative. Listening to the file, you’re struck by sounds whose major affect should have been breath – and never simply as rhythm, which is pure and customary, however in giving texture to guitars (besides on ‘Meteora Blues’, the place the reference level is clearly simply Smashing Pumpkins), course to vocals (on the gripping ‘Echolalia’), and warmth to deconstructed samples (the chaotic, chopped-up dance of ‘Purified by Hearth’). Even when it feels uncontrolled, the breath has an nearly cussed means of falling into fidelity and luxury, and Tumor channels this palpable tendency to be pure and full right into a deeper, extra tangled craving.
No single framework can do justice to the complexity of Tumor’s work, even when Reward a Lord, which was produced by Noah Goldstein and blended by Alan Moulder, appears extra intent on solidifying disparate sounds than stretching them additional aside. ‘God Is a Circle’ completely encapsulates the liminal state Tumor retains diving headfirst into, revealing bits of what they discover and obfuscating others. Against this, the next ‘Pretty Sewer’ is much less multi-faceted, providing a extra a extra mundane image of a relationship whereas nonetheless triggering the creativeness: “You can’t begin a conflict/ Only for the sensation/ What if our mates see/ We stared at our ceilings.” Tumor is understood primarily as a sonic innovator whose mysterious, summary lyricism is all the time in service to their (more and more approachable) music, however their selection of phrases is commonly incisive and highly effective greater than merely aesthetic. The lyrics on ‘In Spite of Struggle’ are imprecise however not inscrutable, with strains like “The absence of our isolation can tear our fears away” suggesting a sure eager for communion whereas betraying an incapability to give up to it.
Within the album’s most pivotal moments, Tumor reaches for transcendence as a lot as they embrace primal needs. The title of ‘Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood’ brilliantly describes the sensation, and the tune lives as much as it. Directly heady and anthemic, tender and cruel, it’s a thunderous frenzy that glistens with potentialities, breaking just for Tumor to declare: “This world feels so ugly when life makes a idiot of us.” And perhaps this explains their unusual devotion to magnificence, a human assemble so fragile and vital we’d rip ourselves open for it, like the important thing to a better energy. Tumor’s music doesn’t ache for any form of godly vacation spot, however it’s transfixed by the potential for transformation, and Reward a Lord proves they’ll harness all the sweetness and horror essential to breathe life into every putting type.
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