Loft
Young Fresh Fellows
Loft is a late‑career Young Fresh Fellows album recorded at Wilco’s famed Loft studio in Chicago and released in 2026 after an initial 2025 Record Store Day Black Friday vinyl run. Cut largely live in about eight hours while the Seattle quartet were on tour, it marks their first full‑length since 2020’s Toxic Youth and finds Scott McCaughey, Kurt Bloch, John Perrin, and Jim Sangster leaning into their long‑standing blend of garage rock, power‑pop, and college‑radio indie with a slightly smoother but still scruffy sound. A later, more polished edition adds overdubs and a bevy of guests—including Neko Case, Peter Buck, Wilco’s John Stirratt, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, Morgan Fisher, and others—without losing the spontaneous, in‑room energy of the original session.
The record opens with the short instrumental “Overture” before slamming into “I’m a Prison,” a frenetic burst of squealing guitars and near‑punk vocals, then downshifts into the more relaxed but hooky “Killing Time in Union Square.” From there it ping‑pongs through witty, off‑kilter pop songs like “Three Gasconading Saints,” the Beatles‑tipping “Death Becomes Us,” sax‑fat, punky “Whispering Hole,” and the guest‑studded, more overtly pop “Destination,” all packed with the band’s usual surreal turns of phrase and affectionate classic‑rock nods. Trippier cuts such as “Harpoon in the Hay,” with vibraphone, Wurlitzer, and psychedelic jazz touches, show them stretching rhythmically and texturally even as they stay anchored in guitar‑band immediacy. Reviewers call Loft delightfully weird, a little messy, and joyfully tuneful—proof that four decades in, Young Fresh Fellows can still turn out sharp, funny, and restless rock songs that feel as at home next to early‑’90s college radio as they do in the present.
Loft
Young Fresh Fellows
Loft is a late‑career Young Fresh Fellows album recorded at Wilco’s famed Loft studio in Chicago and released in 2026 after an initial 2025 Record Store Day Black Friday vinyl run. Cut largely live in about eight hours while the Seattle quartet were on tour, it marks their first full‑length since 2020’s Toxic Youth and finds Scott McCaughey, Kurt Bloch, John Perrin, and Jim Sangster leaning into their long‑standing blend of garage rock, power‑pop, and college‑radio indie with a slightly smoother but still scruffy sound. A later, more polished edition adds overdubs and a bevy of guests—including Neko Case, Peter Buck, Wilco’s John Stirratt, Los Lobos’ Steve Berlin, Morgan Fisher, and others—without losing the spontaneous, in‑room energy of the original session.
The record opens with the short instrumental “Overture” before slamming into “I’m a Prison,” a frenetic burst of squealing guitars and near‑punk vocals, then downshifts into the more relaxed but hooky “Killing Time in Union Square.” From there it ping‑pongs through witty, off‑kilter pop songs like “Three Gasconading Saints,” the Beatles‑tipping “Death Becomes Us,” sax‑fat, punky “Whispering Hole,” and the guest‑studded, more overtly pop “Destination,” all packed with the band’s usual surreal turns of phrase and affectionate classic‑rock nods. Trippier cuts such as “Harpoon in the Hay,” with vibraphone, Wurlitzer, and psychedelic jazz touches, show them stretching rhythmically and texturally even as they stay anchored in guitar‑band immediacy. Reviewers call Loft delightfully weird, a little messy, and joyfully tuneful—proof that four decades in, Young Fresh Fellows can still turn out sharp, funny, and restless rock songs that feel as at home next to early‑’90s college radio as they do in the present.