Youth Code
Yours, with Malice
SUMERIAN
Just over a decade ago, Youth Code released a compilation titled An Overture that served as a compact CV of sorts for the then-new musical duo of Sara Taylor and Ryan George. It compiled their debut album, a new EP, and a few early singles as a formal introduction to their unique blend of influences—post-industrial electronic dance music as defined by ’80s bands like Ministry and Nitzer Ebb and made popular in the ’90s by Nine Inch Nails, along with the moshing hardcore tendencies of the punk scene the duo came of age within—as vocalist Taylor belted out lyrics railing against human and animal rights abuses. It’s a record that sounds like it could’ve been released this week, given that EBM music exists at the outskirts of a genre like coldwave that’s recently resurged among listeners too young to remember its last period of popularity. And lord knows we haven’t made progress within the realm of abuses of power.
Maybe this is why the formula hasn’t changed drastically for Youth Code over the past 10 years, with only two albums and a smattering of singles—collaborative and otherwise—landing in between. The second of those two albums, 2021’s perfect-fit co-production with industrial-metal artist King Yosef, saw Taylor branching out lyrically by closing the project with what she confessed to us was the first-ever love song she’d ever written, inspired by her musical and romantic partner, George. It feels like the band is continuing to test new waters with their follow-up EP Yours, with Malice, another introductory statement of sorts in being their first collection released via the A-lister metalcore label Sumerian. While that particular genre influence doesn’t corrupt the release significantly, it still seems to invite experimentation on each of these five bone-rattling recordings.
Opener “No Consequence” eases us into this change, with the track largely being defined by the hard-hitting stutters of drum machine familiar to Youth Code’s discography, which practically demands the formation of full-body welts in the pit. But with fewer stretches of ambient synths or screamed vocals, and less frenetic pacing, the track signifies the EP’s remarkable balance, despite each ensuing track feeling a bit dressed up with an intriguing aesthetic varnish—cyberpunk befitting clipping.’s latest chapter on “Wishing Well,” or witch house resurrecting the long-entombed sounds of Crystal Castles and the early work of Pictureplane and past tourmates HEALTH on “Make Sense.” In each case, the duo conjures a maximalist sound that consistently feels like an alternate path forward for pop music that’s less consumerist than hyperpop and less nostalgic than anything clinging closer to post-punk. It’s music for workout videos as viewed through the lens of Coralie Fargeat—erratic, brutal, eerie, but always stylishly rendered.
