Daily Dose is your daily source for the song you absolutely, positively need to hear every day. Curated by the Paste Music Team.
English rock trio Yak have released a brand new single, “White Male Carnivore”—their first new music since their 2016 debut LP, Alas Salvation.
The band released an EP through Jack White’s Third Man Records back in 2015 and a year later, their ferocious debut album was spawned. The record was an unrelenting, sneering firestorm of gritty punk rock with attitude, manic energy and a bold artistic vision. While frontman Oli Burslem’s dark, often brutal voice was on display on singles like “Victorious (National Anthem)” and the title track, he also had a softer side with pretty Stones and Velvet Underground-esque moments like “Roll Another” and “Smile.”
We don’t yet have all the details on their second full-length just yet, but they’ve announced a new record deal with Virgin EMI for their sophomore album and released its first cut, “White Male Carnivore.” The song opens with heaping, crunchy guitar feedback and you’re faced with Burslem’s familiar deranged vocals deconstructing his identity as heavy, chaotic musical walls start to cave in around him. There’s even strangely effective, Beach Boys-esque “ba ba ba” backing vocals, and Burslem humorously and sardonically growling, “He’s got the whole wide world in his hands.”
Burslem told Dork of the band’s new single, “I was living in Tokyo, struggling to write and a friend advised me to write from my own point of view. So I wrote this.”
“I listed my diet, my sex and my race—among other things,” continues Burslem. “The three words which made me feel the most uncomfortable were white, male and carnivore. Everything currently seems reductive and polarizing. This song is a reflection of that.”
Listen to “White Male Carnivore” and Yak’s 2015 Daytrotter Session below. Check out their upcoming U.K. tour dates further down.
Yak Tour Dates:
October
23 – York, U.K. @ The Crescent
24 – Newcastle, U.K. @ Think Tank?
25 – Edinburgh, U.K. @ Sneaky Pete’s
26 – Sheffield, U.K. @ Picture House Social
27 – Manchester, U.K. @ Deaf Institute
30 – St Albans, U.K. @ The Horn
31 – Bristol, U.K. @ The Exchange
November
01 – Southampton, U.K. @ Heartbreakers
02 – Brighton, U.K. @ The Haunt
07 – London, U.K. @ Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club