In some ways, pop-punk is a tautologous name for a music genre. Even first-wave British punk bands had a notable knack for producing immediate, irresistibly catchy melodies. In that sense, Brighton four-piece Yonaka cleave closely to punk tradition – their debut album might first hit you with a barrage of chugging guitars and hammering drum fills, but its defining characteristic is a collection of big, hyper-consumable choruses that lodge themselves firmly in the brain after a single listen. Yet Yonaka don’t just channel the charts in the hummability stakes – they ape contemporary trends and give them a moshpit makeover. The Cure sees a scuzzy introductory riff give way to a crisp, digital beat, and Wake Up and Rockstar take cues from Scandi-pop, with the latter spending its first minute sounding exactly like a Sigrid track before the loose, thumping drums and wailing guitars kick in. The frantic Punch Bag, meanwhile, has a moment in which frontwoman Theresa Jarvis mimics the mannered melodrama of Taylor Swift in between the metal-lite licks.
The result of this recipe is a series of songs that feel instantly gratifying but only vaguely relevant – the voguish features tend to be drowned out by predictable guitar-hero bombast, while the hooks come so thick and fast there is little room for inventiveness of any stripe. Don’t Wait ‘Til Tomorrow doesn’t make reconfiguring the charts in a headbang-friendly sonic palate seem like a particularly worthwhile endeavour – instead, it only underlines the general sense that rocking out, at least in a conventional way, currently feels like a creative dead end.
