With A Hammer - Yaeji: Review
Yaeji
is a dance artist from New York with a distinct style combining house music instrumentals with her often very understated singing vocals. After building a fanbase for years with a serries of EPs and mixtapes, With A Hammer is her long-awaited debut album.
Review by Lav:
I was excited for this record for a few reasons. Not only do I think Yaeji is an interesting and unique artist but also the record's lead single For Granted is legitimately her best song yet and one of the best songs I've heard all year. Unfortunately, the first half of this record didn't engage me nearly as much as I was hoping.
While these songs do effectively inject a bit more of Yaeji's personality into them than a lot of her previous material, they're still just not interesting enough to hold up to consecutive listens. Songs like Submerge FM and Passed Me By do have elements that I like compositionally but they unfold very slowly in a way that starts to drag each time. There's also things I like thematically about the title track With A Hammer but it comes after a long passage of pretty minimal interest on the album that kind of sets it up to not be nearly as interesting.
Around the middle point however, the record sort of finds its groove. Starting with the second single Done which has grown on me and lasting throughout the rest of the album the songs here start to have the dancy sentimentality and dynamic fusion of styles that I was hoping for all along.
Highlights in this run include Ready Or Not where Yaeji feels SUPREMELY in her element. Not only is the snappy beat great but also her whispered vocal delivery pairs with its eerie atmosphere perfectly. I'm also quite fond of Happy which has a driving dance beat and thick bass but never really fills out the way you'd expect it to. I actually find it kind of fascinating how dancy it manages to be while staying so quiet and sonically polite, but I really enjoy it.
While this record does technically do the things I was hoping it would, they come inconsistently and almost never at the same time. I do feel like I walk away from With A Hammer with more understanding of Yaeji as an artist than ever before, I'm just not sure it translates all that well into making compelling songs. While the record thankfully does find that lethality on the second half there still aren't that many songs here that are among her best work yet. With A Hammer is a nice start, but I'm hoping Yaeji's next album does a better job at showing off her versatile talent more consistently. 6.5/10
For more fascinating electronica check out my review of Fever Ray's Radical Romantics
