And guess what? Turns out Yeule is a pretty rock star student of the game. In their youth, stifled by conservative Singaporean society, they escaped to Smashing Pumpkins tapes and belted out Pixies songs as part of a band. They filled their album with 2021 covers Post X Nuclear War with homespun takes on the Breeders, Big Thief and Velvet Underground among others. When David Bowie died, a teenager didn't leave his room for a whole week. That admiration is echoed in their aesthetic sass and otherworldly otherness: they've cited Nintendo DS consoles and bottom-feeding deep-sea creatures as fodder for their ever-changing look, which recently struck a perfectly ragged middle ground between steampunk and cyberpunk, Mad Max: Fury Road and The Matrix.
Bowie is also heard soft scarsThe rolling emotion and the way Yeule gives voice to today's outcasts—the Gen-Z grandchildren of Ziggy Stardust, breaking down gender normality in the face of heightened violence and prejudice. Combine all this with a dramatic streak of loathing that Billy Corgan, Tom Yorke or Gerard Way could appreciate, plus elements of Courtney Love's conflicted adventure of sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, even some of Avril Lavigne's middle. finger-pointing sass (Yeule called the famous punk's 2002 debut, Let fallhighly formative), and you have someone who has accumulated decades of misfit energy into art that speaks to our time with unique AI.
Again and again, the album walks a delicate tightrope, balancing big, pervasive feelings of contemporary disillusionment with hauntingly personal details. On “software update,” a tight, meta power ballad worthy of being met with a galaxy of wobbly phone lights, yeule offers a micro-autobiography that could serve as a social media resume for a blinkered generation . “25, injured, painting white in my eyes,” they sing sweetly, as if reading from a children's book. “Handcuffs and hospitals are some things I despise.” The song references disordered eating, a condition Yeule still struggles with, along with white lines and grams, bruises and loss. It revolves around the idea of digital immortality. “When I leave my flesh, you can download my mind/And choose the beautiful places for you,” they offer, lines that carry an extra weight considering that, as a lonely teenager who exists mostly on the internet, the idea of living as A series of automated posts went through Yeule's mind. “Software Update” peaks with Yeule's version of an algorithmic arena-rock hook — “I Love You Baby,” laced over distorted guitar strums, perhaps addressing their fans, their friends, their partner, themselves them or all four.