Yves Tumor’s Heaven to a Tortured Mind was one of my favorite albums last year. Yves Tumor is an experimental rock artist who has been merging electronic music and rock to create a passionate and atmospheric feel to their album. Their 2018 album, Safe in the Hands of Love introduced psychedelic and industrial elements to their music. This album takes everything Yves Tumor has done and expands their hypnagogic pop into fully-fledged rock songs.
In February of 2020, Yves Tumor released the album opener and debut single entitled “Gospel for a New Century” which blew me away. The song starts with a powerful horn section that blew my socks off. Their vocals throughout the track were aggressive but stunning. It worked. It simply just worked. It was the best song I had heard in a long time. Every single element of the song was crafted to create this banger of a song with their energetic vocals staying at the forefront of the song. In March, he went two for two releasing “Kerosene!” which was a rock-ballad featuring Diana Gordon on vocals with Yves Tumor. The song was jaw-dropping. The song has killer instrumentation and a fantastic guitar solo at the backend, but Yves and Diana’s vocal performance is the major standout of the track. The song’s passionate vocal performance shows desperation for the need of someone else’s affection. The lover is the fuel that keeps them going. The last single he released was a two-part track entitled “Romanticist / Dream Palette”. “Romanticist is a minute and a half and is a build-up into the following track. The song starts slow and builds into an energetic chorus. The songs transition with fireworks and erupts with synthesizers and guitars. It’s dramatic and beautiful.
The album came out on the 3rd of April a month into quarantine where we thought we’d be out of quarantine before the beginning of classes. The track “Super Stars” was my favorite non-single on the album. It leans more on the soul side similar to The Isley Brothers. Their fervent vocals are beautiful over the electric guitar that plays throughout the track. Tracks like “Medicine Burn” are aggressive with the guitars screaming and have more industrial elements in the songs as well. “A Greater Love” which is the closer to the album is another soul cut with luscious piano chords and gives off a very spacey feel to the song.
As a whole, the album creates a very psychedelic and spacey vibe. Though some tracks are hard-hitting and aggressive rock songs while others are mellow and laid-back electronic and soul tracks, it is still a concise and cohesive listen from front to back. Yves created a fantastic take on rock bringing influences and samples from all over the music spectrum, and I cannot wait to see what he does next.
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