If “the self-indulgent joy of stupidly loud amplifiers and feedback” is a sequence of words that gets your motor running, then Yoke might be your new favourite band. And when we say new we mean it. This album, also titled ‘Yoke’, is the first recordings the three-piece have shared in public, and unless you caught one of the two (count ‘em) live performances they have so far undertaken in their home city of Newcastle, this slate will be as clean as their music is filthy. So let’s get acquainted! That introductory quote is the words of Daniel Foggin – guitarist in Yoke, joined by his brother Tommy Foggin (vocals and drums) and Mark Brown (bass). But it’s not just that this five-song, 35-minute LP makes use of those things – it’s that it absolutely rips. From the deceptively slowburn intro of torturetoned opener ‘Coil’ to the Neanderthal-rhythmed blowout of parting shot ‘Me-Time’, Yoke is a melted mass of metal, punk, noise and psych whose musical ethos strips things down as much as possible but whose result befouls all the oxygen in the room. You might not know Yoke yet, but you may already know the musical vision of Daniel, who records cosmic, hypnotic psychedelic rock under the name Smote. Rocket released that project’s latest album, ‘Genog’, back in March. The concept of Yoke germinated some time in 2021, as Smote started to attract a following after a few scarce tapes and vinyl releases. Daniel craved an outlet for the sort of dirgeful, distorted underground rock that definitely doesn’t exhibit mystical leanings or a folk influence – American doom extremists Khanate and The Body, Butthole Surfers-meets-Shit & Shine teamup USA/Mexico, and grotty Brooklynites Twin Stumps are all in the ether as influences. Their north-east England locale has a fine pedigree on this front, too, with bands like Drunk In Hell, Foot Hair and Khünnt all standing tall in recent history. Yoke is assuredly a different beast from Smote, but there’s a common thread in the proverbial power of the riff, and the two Foggins plus Mark (who also plays in the live version of Smote) can still zone you out with bludgeoning repetition: ‘Coil’, stretched to almost 12 minutes, demonstrates this majorly. Daniel also pulls out a few solos with Stooges-like mean acid vibes, as on ‘Rubies’. Tommy rattles out a rhythm you can groove to and chokes out lyrics one syllable at a time for ‘Kiln’, with junk-sculpted guitar noise and low end heft doing the rest. ‘Working Person’ is Yoke at their most uptempo, Daniel locking in to full psychedelic speed freak mode, and ‘Me-Time’ tips the scale into sludge metal overload. This debut album came into being almost haphazardly: a while after Mark joined Daniel and Tommy, the trio sent some practise room recordings to Rocket, more as friendly correspondence than in expectation of a release. When Yoke were given the green light for just that, they regrouped and taped themselves live and nasty in the studio, once again. The results sound so focused and driven, it’s disarming to think that it might easily not have been made. As it is, this is one to scorch your ears to if you’ve thrilled to recent Rocket Recordings like The Shits’ You’re A Mess or Gnod’s La Mort Du Sens – or failing that, anything with stupidly loud amplifiers and feedback front and centre.