Everyone looks at their own image. It’s not just a case of mirrors, it’s endless videos and social media posts. Now more than ever people are aware of who they are. On their fantastic 2022 EP Australian pop-rock band Yours Truly dared to ask ‘Is This What I Look Like?’. The follow-up album ‘Toxic’ is hotly anticipated, but after half-the band quit, they’re having to look at themselves in a different way.
Comparisons are complicated, the angle you see yourself from defines what you see. A piece of work should stand on its own merits, but you have to think about what came before and that makes ‘Toxic’ a complicated record. It’s case of Is This What I Look Like – Now?
Two years ago Yours Truly’s bassist and their drummer called it quits, reducing the line-up to guitarist Teddie Winder-Haron and vocalist Mikaila Delgado. After recruiting a new drummer, Harry Beard, they decided to carry on in the same vein. This is good news for fans. ‘Toxic’ is made up of big pop-rock songs and Delgado’s singing is still the real highlight. She’s uniformly excellent, especially on ‘Bloodshot Eyes’ or ‘Sour’ which are highlights of their entire discography. Her breezy singing on ‘California Sober’ harks back to the bouncier style of their earlier work and is an effortlessly catchy anthem, while even the fairly orthodox songs like songs like ‘Let Go’ or ‘Call My Name’ are performed with real flare. Indeed there’s a quality to the songwriting that proves the band had plenty more to say and justifies their decision to carry on.
However, looked at in a different light, there is also a definite step back in the sound they’re making. The band hasn’t just lost ‘the guy who plays bass and/or drums’, their decision-making entity has been cut in half, so choices have been made and not all of them are wise. You see their 2022 EP felt like a massive glow-up. Sure, it resembled their 2020 album ‘Self Care’, had a similar pop-rock sound, was still about Delgado’s insecurities, but presented these sounds and ideas in a way that was devastating. The sound mix made every instrument feel crisp, the individual parts worked as a glorious machine and it was saturated with allure. However, the misunderstanding appears to be that the allure was all about Delgado, it wasn’t. It was the space between the guitars. Each instrument breathed and threaded with each other; you could hear the thrilling snare snaps and the high-hat being rattled. It made them sound like the new Paramore, or Against The Current, where the sound presented on ‘Toxic’ is more like Stand Atlantic, which isn’t a problem if you love big pop-rock songs, but it does shy away from what made their prior EP so formidable and, to be clear, this isn’t a bad thing per se, but the reason it feels like a step backward, is they’re not actually reinventing themselves.
Looking at what the band are now, a trio, it’s newcomer Henry Beard where you notice the real change. While his work offers a solid, varied backbone it’s sorely missing the punctuation and rattling high-hat sounds that made the band’s older songs like ‘Lights Out’ so thrilling. This becomes important when discussing the sound mix because that’s where you really feel the difference. On the surface, working with producer Sam Bassal with a mix by ‘acclaimed engineer’ Daniel Braunstein seems like a great choice (Braunstein worked with Spiritbox after all) but the results are best described as ‘blunt’. Sure, Delgado’s voice sounds stunning but the music is often flat, uninspired and so muddy you can’t tell if Beard is even using cymbals, let alone using them to energise the recording. That’s a massive change to the sound; it swings like boxer when their previous release danced like a graceful ballerina.
Another way to see the band is through Delgado’s personal approach to lyrics. Listening to ‘Toxic’ you can’t help but see it as a breakup record about the band she’s still a part of. That’s inherently fascinating, especially as she makes unusual choices, as though trying new approaches to see what fits in this new band set-up. Opener ‘Back 2 U’ directly addresses these struggles with lines like ‘stuck inside my dreams’ and ‘nothing can last forever’ and by following it with the song ‘Sour’ she underscores her feelings about these changes. It makes for a record that’s significantly deeper than its breezy, effortlessly catchy exterior suggests. This is also reflected in the artwork which depicts an angel rising out of a toxic swamp, however the image also has a slightly disposable, cartoon quality which slightly distorts its message.
Largely, the band knows they’re best seen by the light of a three-minute pop-rock song. Even the slightly disappointing final run songs like ‘Desaturated’ and ‘Call My Name’ maintain the album’s overall tone and level of quality despite feeling a little lacklustre. However this this makes the electronic ‘Feels Like Love’ and the ballad-like ‘All That I’m Not’ stand out. Both gently shift the record’s style and are essential in its overall flow, but it’s difficult to decide if the completely off-brand screamo song ‘Sinking’ is a good idea. By pairing aggressive screams with the album’s biggest hook it creates a careful balance but still feels oddly out of place.
‘Toxic’ is a cracked mirror. It can only show what is there, not what you hoped you might see. It’s a reflection that resembles the band’s previous incarnation but doesn’t quite show them at their best. On the surface it’s solid but there are glimmers of brilliance and in places it really sparkles.
IAN KENWORTHY