Austin four-piece the Young arrived in 2010 with their Mexican Summer debut, Voyagers of Legend, which was stuffed to the gills with psychedelics and stodgy riffage. At times, when the level of intensity reached a cracked breaking point, it felt like a worthy successor to Comets on Fire's Field Recordings From the Sun had finally arrived. Elsewhere, they were channeling the wind-tunnel howl of Hawkwind's "Silver Machine", the weather-beaten sweetness of Teenage Fanclub's Bandwagonesque, and the killer lo-fi guitar melodies of Guided by Voices at their peak. If those seem like lofty comparisons, it's because Voyagers of Legend exuded a confidence seldom felt by a band so, well, so young. On this follow-up record, the band's first since inking a deal with Matador, that boldness is retained and funneled into a cleaner, brighter take on the Young's sound. The psych-rock impulses have been dialed down and pushed into the background, making way for a stronger focus on classical songcraft.
As such, Dub Egg slots neatly alongside Kurt Vile's outstanding Smoke Ring for My Halo on the current Matador roster. Like Vile's work on that record, it feels like the Young's singer/guitarist Hans Zimmerman went through a process of attrition during the making of these songs, knocking out some of his artier impulses to burrow straight to the heart of his band's sound. Some of the reference points from Voyagers of Legend remain, but the work of Big Star, Neil Young, and even the irresistible boogie of early ZZ Top are the clearest forebears to much of this work. Occasionally, the Young's heroes threaten to eclipse them, especially when they edge a little too close to the "Cinnamon Girl" riff on "Plunging Rollers", or when Zimmerman lets his inner Robert Pollard get the better of him on "Poisoned Hell".
But there's an undeniable talent for forcefully pushing those influences into interesting places, where the band names, records, and song titles they're overtly referencing melt away through the sheer force of the Young's playing. The two songs that bookend the album, "Livin' Free" and "Talking to Rose", combine gloriously churned guitar lines and starry-eyed vocal musings that demonstrate their knack for matching big dumb riffs with catchy pop melodies. There's a well-refined vision for this band lurking in the corners of Dub Egg, a feeling that this stuff is gradually congealing in a place that will be seen as their defining style. Due to the spirit of experimentation, the energy does fizzle out on occasion-- the dip into country-rock on "Only Way Out" is particularly ill-judged-- but that's likely to be a product of a band still finding its way.
This sense of fearlessness, which allows the group to push and pull its art in multiple directions just to see where it will lead, is matched by the brash, anthemic feel of much of the music. There's a cocky strut to tracks like "Don't Hustle for Love" and "White Cloud" that suggest this is a band striving to make a connection with a far wider audience. On Dub Egg they fall just short of those ambitions, creating a transitory album that builds on what came before but doesn't feel like the finished product. There's plenty here to suggest that Zimmerman has a spark to his songwriting that could help the Young achieve crossover status, and with Matador behind them they could get the promotional push they need, but ultimately this is an album where the kinks are still being ironed out, where the elements are still being assimilated, and where the direction of the band still feels a little too open-ended to get a full grasp on what they're trying to achieve.
