May Day in the Garden of Memories Album

Falling somewhere between the caterwauling freakout of Six Finger Satellite and the bombastic paranoid stupor of The Jesus Lizard, YSA’s music is jagged and violent. The guitar is shrill and harsh, playing odd counterpoints to the bass line in some cases and just stabs of noise in others. It scrapes over the throbbing rhythm section like coarse sandpaper. The keyboard sounds like a gigantic 1970’s stadium rock synthesizer being blasted through a handheld tape recorder. Drummer Dan Boucher and bassist Justin Stratman pound through everything and really take control in short but intense drone sections that pop up in some of the songs sounding like what might be creepy Middle Eastern punk songs. John Manson yells and dictates enigmatic lines like “We are not who you think we are” with an often blatant disregard for rhythm or meter His forced gnarling of the lyrics somehow makes him seem more in control of everything.