yeule - Evangelic Girl is a Gun
Yeule’s fourth full-length album continues to showcase their uncanny ability to weave genres and sonic textures into something entirely their own. It’s raw, vulnerable, but never unrelenting.
Yeule has always thrived on breaking the mold of pop music. Their sophomore album, Glitch Princess, meshed ambient pop with industrial undertones, toyed with glitch aesthetics, and closed out with a nearly five-hour drone track — an audacious move for an emerging artist. The gamble paid off: Glitch Princess carved out a distinct space in 2022’s alternative soundscape.
Its follow-up, softscars, doubled down on their commitment to reinvention, drenching glitch pop in layers of shoegaze. Yeule’s vocals cracked into piercing screams, wrapped in dreamy instrumentals. Evangelic Girl is a Gun, their fourth studio album, takes a different approach — arguably their most radio-friendly release yet, packed with pop anthems that still retain the experimental flourishes fans adore.
The opener, “Tequila Coma”, channels the fractured beats of Portishead and Massive Attack, with Yeule’s ethereal voice hovering over jagged guitar stabs — the track’s undeniable centerpiece. Evangelic Girl is a Gun finds Yeule exercising restraint, in both instrumentation and vocal delivery, leaning into a sharper, more deliberate sonic palette.
That doesn’t mean they’ve abandoned their post-genre ethos. Tracks like “Dudu” — as refreshing as a summer breeze — reimagine one of pop’s most ubiquitous melodies, turning it into a shimmering, cinematic teen movie soundtrack moment. It’s a lost Y2K radio hit, yet somehow perfectly suited for today’s ears.
“Eko” follows a similar blueprint, arguably Yeule’s most straight-up pop track to date. Without prior knowledge, you might not even clock it as a Yeule song — its hook is instant, an earworm in the purest sense of the word. On the flip side, “1967” channels mid-'90s grunge, its distorted vocals unraveling into cathartic, anguished cries. It’s an act of defiance — an anti-militarist, anti-authoritarian anthem dedicated to a late friend. Given the world’s current state, “1967” couldn’t feel more relevant.
Elsewhere, “Saiko” submerges listeners in a cybernetic dreamscape of glitching circuits and humming processors. Yeule’s angelic voice beckons you into a waltz within a neon-lit dystopia. The album’s title track, “Evangelic Girl is a Gun”, erupts into fiery rave euphoria — a testament to Yeule’s confidence, louder and bolder than ever. “Skullcrusher”, meanwhile, caters to their heavier sensibilities, blasting through two minutes of explosive guitars and trip-hop undertones.
At just over 30 minutes, Evangelic Girl is a Gun doesn’t waste a second. It’s a high-speed midnight motorcycle ride through a neon metropolis, exhilarating and immersive. Just keep your eyes on the road.
8.1/10
