YACHT “See Mystery Lights” Review

“YACHT is about group consciousness. YACHT is about the individual man or woman. If you believe these assertions to be contradictory, consider the Triangle: it is both a collection of points and a shape.” Along with many other of YACHT’s platitudes, so reads this line from YACHT’s mission statement. Some were interesting, while others were banal, but there was one in particular that caught my eye. “YACHT believes in an Afterlife. YACHT does not believe in ‘Heaven,’ or ‘Hell’,” and throughout this album, it shows.

The idea of the afterlife is a heavily recurring theme on YACHT’s fourth LP, See Mystery Lights, as does the idea of group consciousness. In fact, YACHT, which is comprised of Jona Bechtolt and Claire L. Evans, does a very good job of bridging these two ideas, as See Mystery Lights sounds at times like a druggy journey through an afterlife as a giant communal party. The best example of this is the standout track “Psychic City” which seamlessly melds YACHT’s poppier melodies and indie inclinations with the duo’s infatuation with heavily computerized production and electronic sounds. That combined with lyrics such as “I used to live in a psychic city/I never knew what would happen in a day/I might be looking in a window and a friend might say/Come on over, were having a party for you” conjures images of either an actual communal afterlife or some shroomed up hippie’s imaginings of a communal afterlife; either way, the result is a very pleasant and catchy song that does a good job at expressing YACHT’s ideas about life and what may exist after.

In fact, when Yacht manages to stick to the formula of keeping the music light and not allowing the computers to swallow up the pop melodies, it creates some extremely catchy and successful songs. Album opener “Ring the Bell” sounds like TV on the Radio if they were formed in Jamaica and grew up on Bob Marley rather than forming on the cold streets of Brooklyn and immersing themselves in New York post-punk such as Television. “Don’t Fight the Darkness” sounds like a group of African tribal drummers from the future with its interweaving drums and repetitive chanting chorus. “The Afterlife,” with its cry “Hail to thee/Land of heroes/It’s all yours when you’re dead and gone” makes Evans sound like one of God’s cheerleaders, all to a very entertaining result.

The album sags only when Bechtolt’s computers try to do too much of the heavy lifting. “Summer Song” cribs way too much from typical ’80′s-style synth techno (its intro sounds like the first runner up to be the Beverly Hills Cop theme song), while “I’m In Love With a Ripper” walks and eventually crosses the line between cool and cheesy, despite its Justin Timberlake style auto-tuned chorus, and the extremely unnecessary party remix to this song sucks out whatever fun there was in the original version. Despite these speedbumps, most of the album is extremely entertaining and catchy, defying the Judeo-Christian notions of Heaven and Hell and opting for a friendlier, more communal idea of the afterlife, one where life doesn’t necessarily have to end. As Evans sings in “The Afterlife”: “Death is not the end of the song.”

[Review by guest contributor Jonathan Eiseman.]