You already know Yuck. They are the Teenage Fanclub fanclub, the J Mascis reductivists it’s cool to like. Wannabe 90s denizens, they seem to inhabit a universe roughly akin to a British Ghost World; all slacker cool and self-mythology.

But, while many of their forebears spent their careers furiously honing their studied indifference, Yuck seem refreshingly honest. Throughout this, their debut full-length, it seems clear that the band are aware of how ridiculous it is to spend your time aping acts who were at best only moderately innovative even twenty years ago – but they are just having too much fun to care.

There is much to like here. The band produced the record themselves, and this is very much to its benefit. It is not so much defiantly lo-fi as rapturously amateur. Songs that would, if given a big budget sheen, sound laughably simplistic, actually work in Yuck’s hands. ‘The Wall’, for example, revolves around two chords and the characteristically childlike couplet “Tryin’a make it through the wall / You can see me if you’re tall.” On paper, horrible. In practice, though, the sheer melancholic joy with which the vocals are delivered and the instruments are played makes it gripping.

The first half of the record is carried by this sense that the band is totally committed to its own, uniquely derivative musical worldview. Latest single ‘Holing Out’ has been written a thousand times before, by a hundred separate bands. But, while plenty of acts are churning out this revisionism with the sole purpose of shifting a few records to middle aged Sub Pop refugees, Yuck seem completely uncynical. They write like this because it is what they want to hear, not because it is what they think other people want to hear. And for that reason, the record’s almost comical lack of originality is, for the first six tracks at least, forgiven.

When the tempo drops, though, it all begins to fall apart. The first half of the record is like emotional candyfloss; simple, uplifting, fun. The second half, however, is nigh on unsalvageable. As the last few seconds of the almost impossibly ubiquitous ‘Georgia’ fade away, an acoustic guitar appears and the band instantly enter choppy waters. It turns out the distortion, used to such great effect earlier, is not just an aesthetic choice – it also serves to draw attention away from Daniel Blumberg’s lyrics. ‘Suck’ is an over-earnest, drunken ramble around the inside of a rhyming dictionary, Blumberg somehow thinking it acceptable to sing something as mind-bogglingly vacuous as, “Everybody has a mild crucifixion / I first saw you as my benediction / I am sorry you became my addiction.” Instrumental trudge ‘Rose Gives A Lily’, meanwhile, is entirely superfluous; the sort of thing that mildly stoned sixth form jam bands are recording in their garages, and then embarrassedly deleting the following day.

Closer ‘Rubber’ brings the second half of this record slightly closer to acceptability, with the band indulging their most explicit My Bloody Valentine / Slowdive tendencies. But in reality, if you buy this on vinyl you will never bother turning over to side B.

Yuck are immensely likeable. They are fantastic live, they clearly have a solid sense of melody, and there is much to be said for the DIY approach they have taken. The problem, though, is that regression of this magnitude can only be forgiven if it is done to perfection. In that sense, this would make a solid EP. Their inability to maintain their focus over 12 tracks means, however, that this record is ultimately unsuccessful.