- This is the third album for Sydney’s Yes I’m Leaving and in just five years; that makes for some very regular, high dosage noise-bombing. It also makes sense, as frontman Billy has been quoted in both Satanic Bong Breath and The Thousands saying that his songwriting is directly proportional to …”whatever I’m pissed off about at the time. Which is a lot.”

The frustration and furour is evident as ever on Mission Bulb, even though the lads, in their latest video, for opening number Endless Mind in their t-shirts, blue jeans, and with their nicely brought-up, fairly clean-cut faces, smiling innocently, hardly look like they’d be capable of stripping the flesh off a bullock at 300 yards. It puts them in the unassuming company of gents like Shellac, Metz or, more close to home, the delightful No Anchor: quiet, neat looking, even a bit intellectual ...and what has all that relentless thinking produced? Disenfranchisement and purple-faced - if not inarticulate - rage.

All of that angst is strapped, as before, on to seriously muscular rocking, but there is a difference. Like Metz, Yes I’m Leaving would fit well in the modern Sub Pop roster and even better in the old one. The evolution of their sound between records has contributed to that and it may be almost purely thanks to less abrasive production. Gone are the extraordinarily distorted trebles, both in the guitars and the vocals. Both of these are key signifiers of the contemporary garage sound (even though they have comparatively little to do with the original, 60s garage sound). So, Yes I’m Leaving are no longer (the slightly off the mark, modern definition of) garage?

I guess it goes to show just how ridiculously inept pop culture is at creating musical genres which actually mean anything and should further flash like a great big warning light before I go on to split hairs over just how punk, post-punk, grunge or noise-rock Yes I’m Leaving are now.

What I can say is that Yes I’m Leaving are that unusual combination of extremely loud and yet, quite thoughtful. Like the thinking-person’s action film: a rare commodity and one to be treasured.

- Chris Cobcroft.