Mythological Horses blow up the world with dark rock sounds on new full-length ‘YYYMF’

Anchorage-to-Hawaii and Pacific NW-based garage punks Mythological Horses have come back out of the underground with the big rock sound of their fun and ferocious new album YYYMF. It sounds ridiculous to call this early this spring, but you might find this to be the best rock album of the year.

A surprise delight, coming on the heels of various singles and smaller releases, YYYMF was recorded by Tad Doyle of TAD, and features he and TAD bassist Kurt Danielson adding sheen to and beefing up MH leader and guitarist Shawn Holley’s desperate, squealing anthems of love and pain and loss and fun. This is all on top of Jest Commons’s (ex-Moldy Peaches) stormy but slamming drums.

Sure to crush it on forward-thinking alternative radio, the heavy guitars of YYYMF fuel an almost power pop feel over nine Green River-rushing new classics. Coming out on the Seattle landmark label Hovercraft Records, there are layers and layers here, from swooping and chugging opener “Wax Lung” with its feeling of cruel betrayal; the slap-back bounce and heave of downer hit “Sick and Tired,” and ending on the jangling, psychotropic, and explosive instrumental anthem “Fuck Your Drone.”

These are songs about growing up weird and getting lost that would sound perfect as a soundtrack to a teen B-movie. None of these are novelty songs, but each is like a little satirical movie about life on the wrong side of the tracks, often with hilarious lines among the din of the shredding axe-work.

The band has worked with the legendary Jack Endino and other Sea-town luminaries before and has been road dogs for over a decade, and have moved to playing out and dominating festivals (including headlining the New York Antifolk Festival in 2010). Pretty good for a group that started out in coffee houses and punk clubs, to wind up boldly carrying forward the music of an era which changed the Emerald City forever.

Don’t miss this album, which if not your album of 2019 will be one you’ll happily blast all through summer.

Mythological Horses will be playing at The Sunset Tavern in Seattle on Sunday, April 14, with Howardian (featuring Ivan Vanek of Japanther) and a live interview with Seattle artist Ryan Henry Ward.