If there’s a right option to say the title of Yves Tumor’s new album, Reward a Lord Who Chews However Which Does Not Eat; (Or Merely, Scorching Between Worlds), it’s with out stopping for breath. Attempt it, and take note of the heaviness of the following out-breath, how fast it’s to depart your physique. It’s a must to earlier than you even think about the which 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; folks 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 folks in my life I nonetheless don’t know”) and an otherworldly sort of pleasure (“I really feel like I’m fluorescent holding you”). This is perhaps 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 grow to be extra “hook-focused,” because the artist not too long ago advised Courteny Love, the sensual, elusive, and divine qualities of their music stay at its core, interacting in wealthy and fascinating methods. Reward a Lord isn’t 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 stress and launch, and on Reward a Lord, they linger within the area between the 2 in a method that feels bodily extra than simply explorative. Listening to the report, you’re struck by sounds whose most important affect will need to 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 Fireplace’). Even when it feels uncontrolled, the breath has an nearly cussed method 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 combined 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 ‘Beautiful 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 warfare/ Only for the sensation/ What if our associates see/ We stared at our ceilings.” Tumor is thought 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 Battle’ are obscure 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 harsh, it’s a thunderous frenzy that glistens with prospects, breaking just for Tumor to declare: “This world feels so ugly when life makes a idiot of us.” And possibly this explains their unusual devotion to magnificence, a human assemble so fragile and essential we’d rip ourselves open for it, like the important thing to the next 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 wonder and horror essential to breathe life into every placing kind.
