Over the years, Nick Llobet’s songs as youbet have become wound tighter and tighter. From their DIY indie pop origins—documented on their 2020 album Compare and Despair, a collection of polaroid-like miniatures that betrayed their years going to see Frankie Cosmos and Girlpool shows—they’ve delved into territory that’s more dense and intense. Llobet draws from a wide range of influences, from flamenco to folk music, but their songs remain centered on complicated emotions and grim imagery. Even their most beautiful, wistful tracks sound primed to explode into fuzz and feedback—and they often do.
This bottle-up-and-explode approach has never been more apparent (or more effective) than on the band’s self-titled third album. It’s youbet’s first record as a duo—Llobet is joined by new member Micah Prussack—and the extra hands (including those of co-producer Katie Von Schleicher) seem to have allowed Llobet to fully embrace their gnarliest impulses. The tension starts in the first moments of the opening track, “Ground Kiss.” It takes just 15 seconds before a lilting guitar melody is engulfed in a cloud of distortion. The first words that Llobet sings on the record consist of the equally ominous phrase “my death has come.”
This intensity isn’t entirely new for youbet—evident to anyone who’s caught the more in-the-red moments of the band’s live shows—but tracks like “See Thru” and “Worship” show a shift into a higher gear. The latter, in particular, braids the bittersweet melodies of anorak-sporting vintage twee with ear-bleeding country-grunge that evokes Meat Puppets’ heaviest squalls. It answers the question of what Nirvana would have sounded like had they decided to kick on their DS-1s in the middle of their Vaselines covers.
Over the top of these more ragged edges, Llobet takes a pointillistic approach to lyric writing, favoring half-thoughts and dreamy images that coalesce into a picture of unsettled anxiety. The approach could feel guarded, reducing intense emotions to abstractions, but in Llobet’s cutting delivery, even the haziest imagery feels personal and real. Each line is like a note scrawled in the margins of a diary, for when more literal depictions of a day’s events don’t quite capture the gravity of how you’re feeling. The mood is generally downcast: Spilled blood and looming death are recurring motifs; grief and longing haunt the most tender tracks. Even “Nadia,” a gentle acoustic track nestled amid the album’s heavier moments, builds to a chorus that goes, simply, “I’m nothing, I’m nothing, I’m nothing.”
Still, Llobet isn’t without hope. Amid the distortion, “Ground Kiss” imagines the possibility of rebuilding—of growth—when you’re at your lowest. “See Thru,” despite containing some of the band’s most distressed guitar work, finds Llobet singing “hold on, I can get up”—offering a sense that there’s a possibility of overcoming the strain and stress the record captures. The gloom of existence shades youbet’s songs, no doubt, but the tension and noise don’t feel all-consuming. Llobet doesn’t just sulk; they know how to punch their way through the clouds when they start to hang a little too heavy.
