In 1995, The Yummy Fur debuted with a ten-track, seven-minute long, 7” inch EP called ‘Music by Walt Disney But Played by Yuri Gagarin Thus a Political Record.’ After many further singles and two albums in the 1990s, they release their first new music after a 28-year hiatus. That debut title contains an important hint to lead singer and guitarist John McKeown’s writing style – cartoonish (the band’s name is taken from a Chester Brown comic book), surreal yet political. While the ten songs on ‘Everybody Talks About The Weather’ last a whopping 32 minutes, making them seem like indulgent prog rock symphonies compared to their scratchy, stop-start, agit-prop beginnings, they are still loaded with cultural references that are both amusing and thought-provoking.
The current iteration of the band consists of McKeown, Brian MacDougall (guitar) and James Stark (bass) together with Paul Thomson (drums) who after his earlier spell with the group went on to spend 20 years behind the Franz Ferdinand drumkit. As pre-fame Alex Kapranos also had a period with Yummy Fur, it is not surprising that there are moments on ‘Everybody Talks About The Weather’ where there is some musical cross-pollination between the two bands.
A facet that immediately stands out from the opening track ‘Cogs’ onwards is the incendiary quality of the guitar playing, all quick-fire repetition and shards of rough diamond dance shapes. Those guitars are especially frenzied, angular and sometimes outright rocking on ‘Blue Sunshine’ which references Thomas Pynchon as well as the Columbine school shootings.
Stark’s bass is especially menacing and probing on ‘Unity over Europe’ matching the fire siren guitars. The song centres on the Mitford Sisters, Unity and Diana both being Nazi sympathisers with the later going on to marry Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists. Thus, the chorus of “Wake up, Diana / Death in the English garden” is especially potent and timely with the current scary upsurge of the far right in England.
Yummy Fur titles can be enjoyed as phonetically pleasing groovy gibberish, for example ‘Semolina Ballerina’ but delve below the surface and grander ideas surface. The song takes inspiration from Susan Sontag’s ‘Against Interpretation’ with its instruction that “Interpretation’s a conversation / in an unmade bed”, McKeown concluding that “the semolina in the cantina / is making perfect sense.” With a backdrop of Thomson’s motorik beat, twisting guitar lines and Stark adding saxophone to the proceedings, it makes for a mighty melange. The title of ‘My Lasagne’ gives little away about its content but like the Italian meal it has many layers, from a trip to see Pablo Picasso’s Guernica and everyone overlooking the work of Dora Maar with whom Picasso was in a relationship, through references to the Wombles and the film ‘Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia’. Appropriately, during the mention of German bombs over Spain, the guitars tick and then explode.
With its programming, insistent groove and “de de” chanting, ‘Wanda’ is most reminiscent of Franz Ferdinand while featuring guitar inspired by how McKeown imagined Tanya Donelly would play a Robert Fripp riff. It takes its title from Barbara Loden’s semi-autobiographical 1970 film and the song adds her then husband, director Elia Kazan, to the array of no-good men in her movie.
Surprisingly, the title track is slower and less winning than most of its companions. Its lyrics are vignettes from their 1990s life with painter Mac McNaughton who created the album’s cover artwork as the ringleader. In pleasing contrast, ‘Headphones’ is an especially buzzy, angular guitar pop, the song inspired by Mr Weathers, a boisterous kitten who gnawed his way through three pairs of headphones. The song is packed with vivid and sometimes painful imagery from heavy bias on the left side to tinnitus on the far right, feeling like Carrie Fisher but looking like Mickey Mouse, and jogging to ‘Hallogallo’ which does make sense as Neu! were one of the best bands at conveying motion.
‘King of Nothing’ veers into sludge-rock territory but to good effect in chronicling an existential crisis while namechecking some McKeown heroes (Gina Rowlands, Alice Munro and Shelley Duvall.) After hiding behind clever references, the concluding song sees him at his most openly emotional. It is a track with light and shade, much more musical restraint while its heart is edging towards its sleeves in the lines “tell her that you need her… everybody needs a little help along the way.”
It is ending which proves that ‘Everybody Talks About The Weather’ is a record for the heart as well as the head and the feet. After so long away, The Yummy Fur has never sounded better.
The Yummy Fur: Everybody Talks About The Weather – Out 25 September 2026 (Upset The Rhythm)
Yummy Fur – ‘Unity Over Europe’ [OFFICIAL VIDEO]
I was editor of the long-running fanzine, Plane Truth, and have subsequently written for a number of publications. While the zine was known for championing the most angular independent sounds, performing in recent years with a community samba percussion band helped to broaden my tastes so that in 2021 I am far more likely to be celebrating an eclectic mix of sounds and enthusing about Made Kuti, Anthony Joseph, Little Simz and the Soul Jazz Cuban compilations as well as Pom Poko and Richard Dawson.
