Bigfoot. Big album.
Fair enough, it’s been a good three years down the line so they should have pulled out some good moments on their debut album but Yeti have really managed to throw in some eclecticism on ‘The Legend of Yeti Gonzales.’
When they first bounded onto the scene most of the attention centred on the fact that Hassall had made his name with Pete and Carl but soon after, there was a lot of talk about ‘Never Lose Your Sense of Wonder.’ Its not very often you get a single that blows you away in both its unexpected quality from an act you had doubts about and just its overall genius. It was lively, upbeat, full of positive thinking and just absolutely spot on musically and in the vocal delivery. Given that is three years since its original release, it is maybe not a total shock that the album version is a re-recorded version and it is changed about it.
The album version is a bit more laid-back, less full of life but perhaps more content. On first listen, it wasn’t as good as the original but listened to a few times in the context of the album, this album version makes more sense. If you are looking for compliments for a song then the fact that the band have managed to record two different versions a few years apart and still managed to have two great tracks is up there with the best of them.
Similarly, ‘Shane MacGowan’ appeared slight and jokey on the EP but in the confines of the album, it fits well and goes with the flow. And that’s one of the things about ‘The Legend of Yeti Gonzales’, if you were to take some songs out and listen to them individually, they wouldn’t work that well. However, listen to them all together and the sum of the whole becomes much greater than its individual parts. Okay, this should be expected given how long the album was in the making but it would be mad to feel anything but great joy when listening to this record.
An absolute stand-out track is recent lead track of the EP, ‘Don’t Go Back To The One You Love.’ A tour-de-force mix of styles and ideas, the album version clocks in at just under 6 minutes. Brilliant vocals, dark and paranoid lyrics, whistling, horn section, this track has it all and should easily make it into the end of year polls for best tracks of the year.
There may not be a great amount of startling originality on show but that’s never been the most important thing when it comes to music. There is a lot of 60s influence on show here and the influence ranges from pop to folk and psychedelia with tinges of The Byrds and Crosby, Stills and Nash coming through. ‘Sister Sister’ is not a tribute to the old TV show that Nickelodeon used to show but is in fact a song that leans rather heavily on The Rutles and their ‘Doubleback Alley’ song. There are some other influences as well with ‘Reprise’ coming straight from the Krautrock or Electrelane school of music, depending on how old you are.
If this came from one of the likely lads it would be hailed as one of the albums of the year. The truth of the matter is that neither of the likely lads have made a full album as good as this. Whatever happened to them? You know something, it doesn’t matter, Yeti are the act to look out for. Its been a few years but they never lost that sense of wonder, make sure you don’t either.