yeule - Evangelic Girl Is A Gun

On opener ‘Tequila Coma’, yeule - possessed by the pop-rock Celtic fusion vocality of The Corrs’ Y2K hit ‘Breathless’ - sings: “Tequila coma / Naked on the marble floor / And all my lovers / Crucified on the floor.” Sonically, it’s a far cry from the glitchy dream-pop of 2023 predecessor ‘softscars’, as cuts ‘Eko’ and ‘Dudu’ are similarly animated, conjuring the kind of abstract pop visions the likes of Caroline Polachek might craft. Narratively too, ‘Evangelic Girl Is A Gun’ is less concerned with haunting digital dystopia, instead exploring embodied self-destruction, literary romanticism and the ego death required of artistry itself.

Here, the digital entity of fame is made sinewy and corporeal, on the cusp of both worlds: “Did you see the video where I live-streamed from my car?” they ask on the vampiric ‘The Girl Who Sold Her Face’, “I drank blood and chewed on bones and I was finally a star.” As a result, its melodies are far more kinetic, sticky and earthbound, driven by decades of angsty, percussive grunge and melancholic post-pop shoegaze that push yeule out from their arid sci-fi servers and into tangible reality. It’s a welcome evolution that allows a diversification of their established brushstrokes; standout ‘VV’, for example, is yeule at their most hopeful, lovesick and pop-packaged. In all, ‘Evangelic Girl is a Gun’ is a flex of pop ingenuity.