News Youth Man

: Youth Man
Based: Birmingham
Listen: The ‘Bad Weather’ EP
Similar to: Bikini Kill, Cerebral Ballzy

Brace yourself for a punk band that manage to be bold, fearsome and cerebral all in one. Birmingham trio Youth Man use the riot grrrl sound as a springboard for something a little more extreme. Fronted by the electrifying Kaila Whyte, their sound is fast, noisy and full of angry snarls and yelps.

Their first EP ‘Bad Weather’, which you can download for free off Bandcamp, is a balls to the wall punk record. It has a similar energy to various across-the-pond punk bands right now. Cerebral Ballzy spring to mind, but so does the terrifyingly leaden avant-garde of Pile. Their live shows across Birmingham are receiving rapturous praise at the moment, and with an appearance at The Great Escape in the pipeline they’re proving to be a hot ticket.

In an interesting move, they’ve just put out a video for the final track on their EP ‘Wide Awake’. Interesting because the song is where the EP has a major gear change, from a turbocharged punk blast to a slow thudding crawl. The Martin Sek directed video follows a narcoleptic as he has a hopelessly dysfunctional day in Paris. They may just help with a current movement of getting artistry back into British punk.