NEW ALBUMS
YOLA
Stand For Myself
Pop, soul, outrage and joy…
By Stephen Deusner
EASY EYE SOUND
8/10
Yola: amazing voice meets pop nous and political nuance
JOSEPH ROSS SMITH
RARELY does a protest song sound quite as sceptical as “Diamond Studded Shoes”, the first single from Yola Carter’s second full-length, Stand For Myself. It’s an anthem for the downtrodden, a call to arms for anyone pushed aside or trampled under, but even the ratatat chorus warns them not to get their hopes up: “We know it isn’t, it ain’t gonna turn out right!” Contrasting the fatalism of those lyrics is the exuberance of the music, with its rollicking guitar licks and rolling pace sounding like JJ Cale covering The Staple Singers’ “Freedom Highway”. The song, co-written with Aaron Lee Tasjan and produced by Dan Auerbach, nods to pop history without settling on any one particular sound or style to get its point across. And then there’s Yola’s voice, one of the mightiest in pop music today. She locates a midpoint between the lyrics’ smothering worry and the music’s visceral joy, and when she hits the big, dramatic notes, she sacrifices neither nuance nor intimacy. As a result, Stand For Myself never really sounds like a protest album: it’s lush instead of austere, joyous as well as outraged.