Artist: Y & T
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2010
Duration: 61:36
Rating: 5/5
Y&T are finally back with a new studio album! Their first in 13 years, since “Endangered Species” (1997). Not that Y&T were completely dead in the meantime. There just wasn’t a studio album anywhere to be found. Over the last decade we got a two-part compilation from Y&T, “Unearthed Vol. 1” and “Vol. 2”, which gather rarities and unreleased recordings from across the band’s career. Nothing new, in other words. Both were followed by the 2007 DVD “One Hot Night” – a much-needed release that convinced listeners the band hadn’t run out of stage steam or a charge of expressive voltage.
Damn, right! Do you even know who Y&T are? I’ll keep it quick. The band formed back in 1974, shortened its name from Yesterdays & Todays to Y&T after two releases, and lived through its most fruitful period in the eighties, rounded off by the 1990 album “Contagious”. A year later the band called it quits because the musical direction they belonged to had gone out of fashion. And yet “Musically Incorrect” came out in 1995, followed two years later by “Endangered Species”, while Y&T popped up sporadically on concert stages (exclusively in the USA). In 2001 the guys officially got back together! Y&T frontman Dave Meniketti put out two solo records between “Endangered Species” and the new album, the standout being the excellent “Meniketti” from 2002, dedicated to his late mother, while Y&T hit the road more and more often and no longer neglect European stages. Still, let me drop a hint: Y&T have sold over 4 million copies of their records over the course of their career. Anyone who hasn’t heard of Y&T yet has earned a solid smack for years of ignorance, though they can gratefully use it to unclog their ears, because a good reason for a properly unhinged hard rock adventure has been long overdue!
In that time, enough material piled up for a new studio album! Hallelujah! 13 years was worth every minute of waiting! Anyone who remembers the sound of “Endangered Species” surely knows it’s a very dark album, the darkest of Y&T’s career. With all due respect to the excellent 1997 studio effort, whose release we all (luckily) wrongly took to be the band’s requiem and farewell, I have to say that it and “Facemelter” are very different albums in terms of energy.
“Facemelter” is, in energy and in how the songs are arranged, much, much closer to what Y&T were doing in the eighties, in their most successful years. And then some. There are plenty of songs on “Facemelter” that would fit with no trouble on any studio album from “Black Tiger” through “Ten”, “Down For The Count”, “Meanstreak” or “Contagious”. “Facemelter” works flawlessly, without a single misfire. If you happen to doubt it, just spin the opening riff of the excellent new song I’m Coming Home, and comparisons to “Black Tiger” will become unavoidable! Blind Patriot, one of the fastest and most wound-up songs on the album, would keep company with the material on “Mean Streak” without any brakes. “Facemelter” captures the most authentic, direct original heritage of Y&T’s musical profile and, as a consequence, the riches of their catalog.
Blues and Y&T are two inseparable building blocks of the band’s career. If I’m being deliberately nasty, that connection kept the band from a commercial breakthrough in the eighties, one that would have overshadowed the early imitators who borrowed their then-glossy look (Y&T are considered a sort of forerunner of sleaze rock – a link in its evolution) and who, with far less creative effort but more implanted posing, carved out a glam sleaze rock groove from the then rapidly developing melodic hard rock message. Y&T, though, stuck to their guns and stayed put. In the shadows, but they stayed put. The love of the blues is simply essential to Y&T’s existence. As long as it’s driven by the inspired machine of the singular Dave Meniketti’s brilliant mind.
On the new album Meniketti proves he hasn’t lost a speck of vocal power. His voice is still marked by an exceptional feel for adapting within the verses. It doesn’t get much more subtle than when Dave Meniketti’s emotionally immersed vocal leads the verses. He’s kept his tremendous power and explosiveness. Marginally raw, sandpapered, yet steered through a velvety, smoky middle register, it brings a hefty dose of melodicism to the music, while the songs, with all the expressive charm of his throaty touch, get a truly unique coronation . Meniketti’s expressive voice creates that veil of melancholy mood and subtle language of eroticism, which means we can’t ignore the band’s inspired kinship with the veterans and pioneers of blues rhetoric. The magic of Y&T has stayed unspoiled on the new album too!
Meniketti’s figure in Y&T carries even more weight than you may have thought so far. The man is not only an outstanding hard rock vocalist but also an out-of-the-ordinary guitarist. In the riff department he expertly combines rock classicism with blues moves. He always stays on the center line of a superbly forged melodic groove, to which he keeps adding, with the most refined feel, a juicy dose of blues rhetoric. This comes through most intensely in the witty solos that Meniketti, like a skilled juggler, tosses off all through “Facemelter” as if for fun. In these spots Meniketti, serving up top-shelf guitar chops and the lively intellect of his solo weaving, brings a more than welcome element of unpredictability and spontaneity. The solos remain a first-class treat and a Y&T trademark!
Naming a favorite will be hard this time. Every song carries the priceless charge of that recognizable, one-of-a-kind Y&T musical sharpness, sparkling in the best possible way throughout “Facemelter”. Let me just say that the album is expressively varied thanks to a diverse choice of lead motifs, fastened onto the tough, rolling, erogenous rhythmic undercarriage, which the production builds on with a raw, live feel to the sound!
The 13 years of waiting more than paid off. The new Y&T album feels inspired, witty, fresh, as if it had been made at the peak of the band’s commercial power in the mid-eighties. And then some. This album pulls off a remarkable maneuver in subtly highlighting those Y&T finesses that connoisseurs of the band love most. From head to toe! From the first song to the last! Plus the bonus track Losing My Mind, if you get hold of the limited edition of the new album. There’s no filler on the album, and no feeling of the running time being padded. With “Facemelter” Y&T have put one of the best rock albums of 2010 on the market, proof that good classic hard rock isn’t extinct yet. We waited a long time for it. But then we also waited a long time for the new Uriah Heep album, and for the new Journey album (one with a vocalist worthy of Perry, of course). Even though Y&T will remain an unjustly overlooked band on the rock map after this release, “Facemelter” is yet another manifesto confirming that Y&T stand at the top of the league of the finest hard rock bands rock has ever produced! Let’s just hope we won’t have to wait so long for the next Y&T album!
Lineup
Dave Meniketti – vocals, guitar
John Nymann – guitar, backing vocals
Phil Kennemore – bass guitar, backing vocals
Mike Vanderhule – drums, percussion, backing vocals
Production
Y&T
Track list
01. Prelude, On With the Show
02. On With The Show
03. How Long
04. Shine On
05. I Want Your Money
06. Wild Child
07. I’m Coming Home
08. If You Want Me
09. Hot Shot
10. Blind Patriot
11. Don’t Bring Me Down
12. Gonna Go Blind
13. One Life
14. Losing My Mind*
*…bonus track for the European market
