Yves Tumor – “Kerosene!”
By: Jesse Benitez
I know I slacked a little these past few days by not keeping up with the “Track of the Day” posts, but I guarantee you, this song alone (and quite possibly this entire album), makes up for all of it. Released as a single prior to Yves Tumor’s fourth full-length album, Heaven To A Tortured Mind (2020), “Kerosene!” has been a non-stop, pleasant earworm for me. I was ecstatic for Tumor’s scheduled performance in the nation’s capital, though because of the pandemic, many shows lined up for their North American Tour had to be postponed. Fortunately, their latest album was a blessing during quarantine. Released on April 3rd, just a day after my 21st birthday, I was greeted with a fresh, rhythmic series of sonic abstraction.
“Kerosene!,” the fourth track off Heaven To A Tortured Mind (2020), is a sweetly fantastical duet, featuring potent vocals from Diana Gordon (formerly Wynter Gordon) that tug and embrace with Tumor’s echoing rawness. The track itself is explosively rock powered and vigorous, while at the same time, it maintains a striking delicateness. The dissonant guitars complement the unobtrusive harmonies through jolting sharpness within their riffs. Something about this song feels stadium-sized; so much larger than life. The tune’s amplification racks up into a thundering bang, puncturing every vein of what I thought rock once was. Tumor and Gordon’s possessing vocals have so much confidence, blare, and swagger— and the coalescence of all these elements makes this song authentically grand and unforgettable.
Yves Tumor is capable of creating some of the most paralyzing sounds in music right now. Once you start listening to them, you’ll never find a reason to stop.
