Cast’s Yeah Yeah Yeah (Scruff Of The Neck) arrived pretty much out of the blue. At least according to frontman John Power. Youth suddenly became available, and who wouldn’t want to take advantage of the Killing Joke bassist’s venerable production credentials (Verve, Paul McCartney, James). The songs Power had were unfinished, but he decided to work it out in the studio with original members Liam “Skin” Tyson on guitar and Keith O’Neill on drums.
And the studio was so very kind to Cast, which delivers its most soulful (at least by Britpop standards), gleefully bombastic batch of music since 1995’s All Change. Simply put,Yeah Yeah Yeah maintains the steady stream of regenerative juice 2024’s Love Is The Call couldn’t quite sustain for 11 tracks.
We love the album so much, in fact, that we were willing to wait patiently for Power (former bassist for Liverpool legends the La’s) to deliver this conversational overview between tour dates with Liam Gallagher, Richard Ashcroft and the like.
—Hobart Rowland
1) “Poison Vine”
“It’s got such a groove, really … and that beautiful looseness all great grooves seem to have. The guitar riff and the bass line are both working each other. We were looking for a female vocalist to add some depth to the tracks, and our manager suggested the legendary P. P. Arnold (Tina Turner, Peter Gabriel, Oasis, Small Faces). When we first recorded this track and P. P. came down the studio and sang, I just knew straight away we had the real thing. It sounds authentic. It has that amazing groove and soul—and that anthem sort of vibe.”
2) “Don’t Look Away”
“This was actually the first song we recorded on the session with Youth. It’s about finding sanctuary within yourself, about keeping the faith with yourself, really. It’s an anthem. I’m going to use that word a lot when describing the songs because there’s quite a few anthems on the album. This was the first and sort of set the scene for the rest of the record.”
3) “Calling Out Your Name”
“I love the psychedelic Indian strings. It’s an uplifting song. It’s got a bit of gospel in it, with a massive sing-along chorus. It’s calling out to us all, really—never let them tell you how to live your life, never let them tell you what’s wrong or right. It’s a pounding bass, straight down the line. It’s very Cast, actually, but with a massive, uplifting chorus.”
4) “Free Love”
“‘Free Love’ is the type of song that, as a writer, you dream of writing. It was probably one of the quickest songs I wrote on the record, and I wrote it very late in the session. But the words came quickly: ‘I held a flame within my hand/It flickered in the heart of man/I reached into the fire, tried to tame my earth’s desire.’ I love singing it; I love playing it to people. It’s got that beautiful sort of chorus that classics often have—in the sense that you don’t even need to know the lyrics because it’s just a kind of chant anyone can sing along to. So, yeah, free love … Is it the jewel in the crown? It could be. It could well be.”
5) “Say Something New”
“It’s got a slightly Lennon-esque urgency to it in the vocal. It’s about fighting the demons you find within you. Some days, it’s a bit of a struggle. You know what I mean? It’s got a theremin, a baritone guitar, even some plucked strings. It even ends like a spaghetti Western. It’s got a slight R.E.M, Stranglers vibe to it, you know. But I love it.”
6) “Way It’s Got To Be (Oh Yeah)”
“This is a psychedelic funk song that spirals around on a descending and rising bass and guitar riff. I’m straight from the off with the opening line, ‘There is something that I want that I just can’t seem to find/Stranded somewhere in my head, in the back streets of my mind.’ It’s searching and probing, trying to scratch that itch we see beyond the narrative. A sassy little number that also features the great P. P. Arnold on vocals.”
7) “Devil And The Deep”
“I can picture every line of the song as it’s sung. It’s haunting, it’s evocative. It gives the listener a breather or a little break from the sonic onslaught.”
8) “Weight Of The World”
“Well, hold on to your ass, because this could be the most rocking and intense track on the album. I mean, it’s certainly a full-throttle ride: drums pounding, guitars screaming. But it stems from a feeling of vulnerability, a feeling of being misunderstood.”
9) “Teardrops”
“This is an epic soul song. The orchestration and arrangements feel classic to me. It’s another one of the tracks on the album that’s complete in its sentiment and delivery. The chorus, ‘Just another teardrop from the eye of the world,’ seems to touch all the right places. It grounds me when I listen to it, and that’s why I call it a classic.”
10) “Birds Heading South”
“A song about the changing of the seasons—and the ghosts of yesterday that you can never seem to let go of. It’s got a kind of Bowie-esque feel to it in certain parts. It’s a classic sort of song on a descending scale.”
See Cast live.
