Cocoa Sugar

For all the abrupt scene changes, Cocoa Sugar feels a self-contained universe. It gets straight to the point: human experience is messy. Young Fathers will always be restless and surprising, but for the moment it sounds like they’re right where they should be.

With this record Young Fathers have managed a perfect synthesis between what they are saying and how they choose to present that sonically. Yes, this is a highly political and experimental record, but it is also a brilliant pop album.

Cocoa Sugar is an invigorating listen from beginning to end, and it's hard to imagine any other band making a musical work of art that's as visceral this year.

This is a far more stripped down, stream-lined record that remains just as essential and urgent as all their output so far with little to no compromise.

Provocative when it needs to be, it steers well clear of addressing current world issues explicitly. It doesn't try to answer the difficult questions; rather it invites the listener to delve into their minds to find out the answers for themselves. As a result, this is an album that will resonate in five, ten, 15 years times--and they did it on their terms.

This is a fluid expression of both jarring and accessible concepts that hit you square in the jaw. And like the two previous albums, these Scots still sound like nothing else out there.

Like Francis Bacon, Young Fathers borrow inspiration to create gloriously realised works of unique art, which arouse debate, revulsion and awe in varying measures.

Cocoa Sugar is a rare achievement; a record that simplifies a band's sound without diluting it. Somehow, Young Fathers have made their most accessible record yet but also their most introspective and necessary. It serves as further proof that they are one of the U.K.'s very best bands.

Ultimately, though, this is another dispatch from the post-genre space Young Fathers have claimed for their own, blasting out triumphant, sincere, and deeply humanistic sound collages that beg for you to join them there.

Cocoa Sugar mystifies before it gratifies, but it reflects a modern global chaos as much as it does a personal one.

Cocoa Sugar isn’t a filtered version of what came before. Instead, it cements their status as riled-up oddballs determined to reinvent the wheel.

Cocoa Sugar is a record that merits mass appeal recognition, a timely offering educing the moral panic fever reigning over our everyday existence.

Young Fathers haven’t done what was expected of them on Cocoa Sugar but in dodging expectations once again, they continue to triumph.

The end result is fascinating and forbidding in equal measure, and there’s clearly an argument that it’s also very timely: twisted and broken-sounding pop music for a twisted and broken era, replete with villains (the protagonist of In My View, a “greedy bugger”, actively enjoying not just the taste of his foie gras, but the cruelty of its manufacture) and lyrics that appear to swipe at nationalism and toxic masculinity, albeit obliquely.

It all adds up to a fascinating, multifaceted work which strives to find its own unique space in a crowded musical world, forever mindful of its limitations, but soldiering on with good humour.

Cocoa Sugar is an audacious high-wire act which captures them at a potent peak. [Apr 2018, p.91]

Cocoa Sugar finds Young Fathers at a fascinating juncture: opening up, moving forward, but still existing in a sonic hall-of-mirrors world of their own. [Apr 2018, p.104]

They demonstrate a unique approach, building unsteady sonic sculptures from bizarre beatboxing and sped-up samples and bringing them to life with rapturous soul testifying. [Apr 2018, p.37]

None of these influences are worn on Young Fathers' sleeves and Cocoa Sugar is further proof that when the band puts something out that you can prepare for a unique, engaging listen.