Yves Tumor - Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) (LP)

Yves Tumor’s Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) arrived in March 2023 on Warp, and it still feels like someone cracked open a portal between glam rock, shoegaze and a feverish pop dream. Sean Bowie has been tilting at the edges of genre for years, but this one sets its sights on a different kind of transcendence, the sort you feel in a small venue when the lights go blood red and the bass starts to bend your ribs. It is loud, lush and strangely intimate, the sound of desire and dread wrestling in public.

The production credits tell part of the story. Noah Goldstein, who has worked with Frank Ocean and Kanye West, corrals the chaos into a widescreen murmur, and Alan Moulder, famed for mixing Nine Inch Nails and The Smashing Pumpkins, makes the guitars smear and gleam without losing bite. You get a dense, tactile mix where every edge feels deliberate. Even when the noise swells, there is space carved for a sly vocal or a synth line that sneaks up from under the floorboards.

“God Is a Circle” kicked the door in first, a single with a claustrophobic pulse and those gasping breaths that feel like a horror film trapped in your headphones. It’s a statement about intimacy that reads like a panic attack and a seduction at once. “Echolalia” flips the mood with a chant-like hook that sounds almost nursery sweet until the lyrics twist the knife. “Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood” rides a post-punk chug into a shoegaze bloom, the chorus spreading like smoke, and “Lovely Sewer” plays the romantic card without losing the record’s grit. “Parody” snarls and sways, letting the band dig into a grimy groove that recalls rock clubs with sticky floors and too-loud PAs.

Part of the thrill is how Bowie uses their voice. It glides between swagger and supplication, sometimes processed into a ghost, sometimes right in your ear. The words circle obsession, ritual and the messy business of making yourself legible to another person. It is dramatic, sure, but never camp for its own sake. Even the theatrical flourishes land with weight, helped by drums that punch straight through the haze and bass that keeps the songs grounded when the guitars start to melt. The aesthetic has a consistent through-line too. Jordan Hemingway’s videos, from the haunted-room imagery of “God Is a Circle” to the surreal body language of “Echolalia,” sharpen the album’s silhouette. It looks like it sounds, which is rarer than it should be.

Critics clocked it straight away. The record drew strong notices from publications like Pitchfork, The Guardian and NME, and it showed up on a raft of 2023 lists that leaned toward adventurous pop and noise-curious rock. What matters more is how it plays front to back. There is a clever sequencing that keeps your ear guessing. Brighter melodies slide in just when the distortion threatens to swallow everything, then a riff punches through and flips the room. It is a proper album, not just a stack of singles, which is why it keeps earning repeat spins.

On wax, this music lands with even more body. The low end feels physical and the guitars take on a velvety smear that suits the mood. If you’re hunting for Yves Tumor vinyl, this is the one I keep nudging friends toward, the kind of record that makes you want to pull out the good speakers and turn the lights down. If you like crate digging, ask your favourite Melbourne record store to put aside a copy, and if you’re not local, it’s easy enough to buy Yves Tumor records online through shops that ship vinyl records Australia wide. Collectors who like the arc of an artist on the rise will get a kick out of filing this alongside Heaven To A Tortured Mind, a neat little story of risk paying off. And if you’re building a shelf of Yves Tumor albums on vinyl for late-night plays, Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) belongs near the front. It’s a world you can step into, and once you’re in, the walls breathe with you.