Yak - Victorious (National Anthem)

The worry with bands like Yak is that they’ll struggle to capture their live energy on record. It’s all too common - a band with a live show that precedes them bundle into a studio and lose all momentum, disappearing into a cupboard packed full of gadgets instead. As last year drew to a close even Yak themselves even seemed to have their doubts, admitting in their Class Of 2016 interview that “[you] can’t really mid-take just throw a guitar and go, ‘Yeah!’” Health and safety be damned, though - on the evidence of ‘Victorious (National Anthem)’, such reckless use of makeshift weaponry must’ve fed into Yak’s studio time after all. A clattering, battering introduction to their debut album ‘Alas Salvation’, it’s a runaway freight train from the opening seconds. Dipping and diving in a manner more deranged than Yak have ever put to tape previously, it gleefully jumps from fidgety pace to curb-stomping, bassy breakdowns and back again, not a care in the world for convention. An indecisive child in a sweet shop packed full of e-numbers, ‘Victorious’ barges in and skips back out in two minutes flat, all manner of chaos enacted in the interim. It’s every bit as gnarled, stormy and sweaty as that incomparable live show. Save your worries for lesser bands.