When Brightonsfinest sat down to talk to Yonaka about their upcoming headline tour, their understandable excitement also carried with it a small amount of apprehension. Is it maybe too soon, with only one release under their belt? Clearly they shouldn’t have worried, as tonight’s show at The Prince Albert is a sold out affair and deservedly so.

Easing in an already packed room are touring buddies and support Moats. Their clever take on indie has interlocking riffs, intricate syncopation and rasping, bluesy vocals. Bringing to mind Alt-J if they had a little bit more grit. Although when listening to their recordings later, this appears to be the result of a blown out voice box rather than a stylistic choice, but it still works. Their lead singer seems most at home when he’s free of his guitar, embracing his inner showmanship by contorting and wrapping his microphone cable around his neck.

Before Yonaka even begin, their guitarist George is already shirtless. It's an indicator of just how hot The Prince Albert can get when it's packed to the point that movement is severely restricted, but also pre-empts the intensity of the performance the band are about to give.

Lead singer Theresa manages to inhabit several front-women at once. One minute her eyes are closed with palms outstretched to the ceiling. The next she’s crouched low with bouncing shoulders, even bringing out the gun fingers for one of their songs that contains a reference to a shotgun in its chorus. She’s an inexhaustible source of energy. Throwing abstract shapes like Kate Bush jacked-up on sugar, vigorously head banging, or pummelling her floor tom during ‘Run’, all without missing a single note or even appearing short of breath. The rest of the band isn’t any less energetic, throwing their weight around to the monster riffs.

They end on the single tonight's show is in aid of: ‘Ignorance’ finds Theresa spiting out syllables in rapid succession like a kind of pseudo-rapping. “I’m awake, I’m a waste, I’m a joke, I’m a fake” she rattles off during the chorus, perfectly capturing the relentlessness of an oppressively critical inner voice that the song is grappling with and fighting to subdue.

When they incorporate electronic elements and samples, such as the tight, skittering hi-hats and gut-shaking low end of contemporary rap production, their sound becomes a really exciting prospect. The combination of rap and rock is understandably a musical combination approached wearily and with some reservation. For most what comes to mind is nu-metal, Fred Durst and the general crimes against music and fashion of the early 00’s. While there’s a little bit of Rage Against the Machine in the heavy wig-out riffs their songs lurch into, they stay clear of these pitfalls, replacing them with reference points that feel contemporary. Free of any naffness and most importantly is actually good, really good in fact. “I can’t believe so many people are here!” Theresa confesses towards the end of the night. Personally, I have no problem believing it.
Louis Ormesher

Facebook: facebook.com/yonakamusic