Yoo Doo Right – Build and Rest by the Shepherds Light: Album Review

Hailing from Montreal, Canada’s second-largest city, Yoo Doo Right produce perhaps the largest sound to emanate from the country of the Maple Leaf flag. Their new album Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light cements their reputation as purveyors of experimental-cum-krautrock-cum-post rock-cum-pretty much everything and the kitchen sink. With the help of some familiar faces they have crafted a collection of songs that, like From The Heights of our Pastureland, towers above their peers and contemporaries.

Centered around Justin Cober (electric guitars, bass VI, synthesizers, piano, tape recordings, voice) and John Talbot (drums, percussion), Yoo Doo Right never intended to make the album that became Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light:

We booked studio time with no intention of finishing a record. The goal was to lay down some new ideas and get in the mindset of recording. Hotel2Tango is an incredibly warm and creatively conductive place for us. For four days straight, we put in 12-14 hour days and routinely got lost in the haze of creative fervor.

It is that creative fervour (quotes can be Canadian English, I won’t forgo the U) that the title of the album stems from. Build and rest, build and rest, build. And rest; appropriately repetitive given the genres one tends to find across Yoo Doo Right’s output. But who is the shepherd? Well, that is up to you and you alone.

The album begins with Two Hoarders, a knowing nod to Cober and Talbot by Cober and Talbot. Two hoarders of riffs, of beats, of people rediscovering that they love the creative process. Together they say that there is joy in this album, and a sense of freedom not present before; the way that Two Hoarders explodes after a gradual crescendoing bass beat and cymbal crashes feels like catharsis and (re?)birth combined.

Doldrums, Doldrums, Eviler Than The Devil was released as the album’s lead single (and, unsurprisingly opened the 105th edition of my show) and features dancing and competing time signatures, wonderfully cryptic lyrics (And so we dance the little didn’t’s/And sing the little did’s/To be fierce in mercy/To be stubborn in hope). The pulsating bassline, performed by Timothy Aaron Bryan after joining Cober and Talbot on tour, is pure kraut (nothing sour about it) and it comes close to lifting you as high as the peaks of the song.

One could argue that with a title such as Torture, the band’s statement about joy is misplaced; but again – build and rest, build and rest, Build. And rest.

The title highlights the main themes and motifs of the record as it stands… What else is there in our stories? Everyday is caring for ourselves and then doing everything in your power to care for those around us. A heroic journey is nothing but helping set camp up every night and making sure everyone is fed.

It is practically Sisyphean, but without the having angered a God aspect. And with a lot more enjoyment.

With titles such as Industriestraße 9 (a now-defunct squat in Lucerne they used to play) and Sofort, Si Fort (a guitar pedal) we are given insight into the inner workings of the Yoo Doo Right creative process, but unless we are told (which, we are but I will refrain) we don’t know which are the songs that were already formed before the studio or which are the songs that were the result of experimenting in the studio (though the latter is a clue).

Engineer Ky Brooks makes a starring turn on Neighbours Report Their Neighbours by penning the lyrics and reciting them. That and the aforementioned Industriestraße 9 prove that Yoo Doo Right are not just a repeat-you-into-submission outfit; the ambience touched upon in these two songs in the middle of the album are, to me at least, one (or indeed two) of the highlights of the whole album. Their counterpointing to the rest of the album almost personify the Rest of the title. Lulls between the Build, as it were. Build, and rest…

The album’s closing track is also its title track and that too has a mellow, down your tools at the end of the day feel. The addition of Jessica Moss on violin really does give the song a wide-expanse feel. It has the tempo of the middle with the repetition of the start and end and ties everything together nicely.

In a way I was dreading Yoo Doo Right releasing this; maybe not so much Build and Rest… but more anything that is their fourth album. I came in with number three and what an introduction that was. I needn’t have worried. Build and Rest by the Shepherd’s Light is one hell of a way to build and expand upon …Pastureland. If you haven’t already delved into Yoo Doo Right, I can think of no better way than this.

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All words by Adam Brady, who hostsThe Adam Brady Show on Louder Than War Radio. You can find his author’s archivehere.