Neu Yoofs

Kids grow up fast. Yoofs are Bournemouth-based teens, rinsing out the unwanted boxes of useless stuff from their parents’ garages before finding every empty plug socket in sight and stomping in the speakers and distortion pedals. So far, fairly standard stuff; Yoofs epitomising every hard-hitting, lo-fi rock band this side of No Age, albeit with aplomb. But in the space of two months, with the endurance of one potentially nasty lawsuit case in regards to the band’s former name, kids have started growing some genuine stubble, instead of that annoying fluff you have to put up with for the first few years of adolescence. The tunes have started to emerge with consistency, the offers have started coming in, the Real Estate support slots beginning to come in out of nowhere… It brings a tear to my eye but these guys are just about ready to leave home.

A ridiculously fast-moving series of events all comes to something resembling a turning point or “defining moment”, if you will, with the band releasing a glorious - you guessed it - cassette through the reputable Art Is Hard Records (best known for snapping Bos Angeles out of their cots and bringing them up to become one of the UK’s most promising acts). ‘WE USED 2 BE FUN’, relentless and all up in your face as you might expect it to be, also showcases a notably American-sounding wealth of songs, as if it were made by kids who spent their teens seeing gigs at LA punk venue The Smell every night, with Mika Miko tattoos strewn across their chests. Truth is, Yoofs are more than likely into exactly the kind of bands that you’d presume, only these acts were viewed and amired from a distance, aside a sandy British beach. Now it’s time for the kids to go off exploring.

JOHN ACTOR IS MONKFISH by yoofs

The ‘WE USED 2 BE FUN’ EP is a free download on Bandcamp. Yoofs play with Woman’s Hour at Cricketers in Kingston on 16th November.