There were fears that seven albums would be their lot, but luckily 2021’s SUCKAPUNCH – along with an anniversary re-release of the iconic Sinners Never Sleep – seems to have re-injected enough lifeblood to bring about their eighth offering, Truth Decay.
There’s a tried and tested recipe for a You Me banger: simply add one earworm riff to a soaring chorus; finish off with an angst-driven bridge. The band obviously know this, and the opening single “Deep Cuts” feels like a hit moulded from muscle memory. It’s followed up by “Mixed Emotions (I Didn’t Know How To Tell You What I Was Going Through)”, another triumph that edges on the poppier side. It has a similar dancefloor energy to “No Future? Yeah Right” – a sonic extension of the band’s SUCKAPUNCH era featuring Rou Reynolds.
Elsewhere, “God Bless The 90’s Kids” is a fun, headbanging ode to Zillenials, while “Traumatic Iconic” serves up another blueprint You Me track. “Who Needs Revenge When I’ve Got Ellen Rae” and “After Love In The After Hours” take a little longer to grow on you, but when they do they’re similarly infectious. More than anything Truth Decay is fun; even the open-chested “Breakdown”, which grapples with venturing back into the public eye, is set to a groovy, earworm bassline. The energy is only somewhat lowered for “A Love Letter To Those Who Feel Lost”, the closing track gifted with Cody Frost’s ethereal harmonies. After a dozen dance-along tracks, this lighters-in-the-sky moment makes for a touching finale.
When it comes to cult classics (the likes of “Underdog” or “Room To Breathe”), Truth Decay doesn’t necessarily boast any obvious contenders. That challenge isn’t unique to You Me At Six, though; whatever was in the air in the early 2010s is proving stubbornly hard to recreate for a lot of bands. It doesn’t really need recreating, either. Truth Decay is still, at every turn, a quintessential You Me album. The choice not to deviate into experimental territory is comforting rather than disappointing, and a more than solid addition to their catalogue is no bad thing.
