Danish indie-rock quartet Yung have shared a third (and final) preview of their forthcoming second record Ongoing Dispute ahead of its Jan. 22 release via PNKSLM Recordings. “Friends on Ice,” the album’s closing cut, follows previous singles “Above Water” and “Such a Man,” while Ongoing Dispute is Yung’s first album since 2016’s A Youthful Dream.
“Friends on Ice” “came about as a consequence of [frontman and songwriter Mikkel Holm Silkjær] being challenged to strum the most difficult guitar chord he could come up with,” Yung explain in a statement. “This approach has since become a go-to suggestion to any kind of creative block we encounter. Like a one-card equivalent to Brian Eno’s Oblique Strategies, it rarely works.”
That offbeat chord is the song’s driving force, accompanied by Frederik Nybo Veile’s steady drums, Emil Zethsen’s gleaming lead guitar and Guldborg Tarp’s dark bass throb. “Consume me, consume me, consume me,” Silkjær sings, as if surrendering wholly to something far larger than himself. “Friends on Ice” melds post-punk edge with dream-pop revery, closing out Ongoing Dispute on a hypnotic note.
“It’s a song about alienation, loneliness and the immediate remedies we, as individuals in western society, turn to when confronted with pain or struggle,” Silkjær says. “Capitalism promotes individualism, which makes a lot of people think they have to deal with issues and problems in life on an individual level, when often we’d be much better off if we dealt with things on a collective level.”
Listen to “Friends on Ice” below. You can preorder Ongoing Dispute right here.