REVIEW: Evoking Rage and Rebirth: Yada Yada Unleash “All of These Evils”
REVIEW
REVIEW
☆ BY KIMBERLY KAPELA ☆
Photo Credit: Zeltzin Vazquez
YADA YADA TAKES CONTROL — Chicago-based femme-fronted indie punk band Yada Yada confronts the darkness head-on in their new EP, All of These Evils that’s a raw, visceral, and liberating collection that transforms pain into power. Recorded at the iconic Electrical Audio with Brian Fox, the EP dives deep into themes of grief, trauma, and rebirth, pairing emotional excavation with the band’s heaviest and most unapologetic sound to date.
From the opening moments of All of These Evils, Yada Yada wastes no time pulling listeners into the storm. Tracks like “Psychosis” and “Control” explore the suffocating weight of grief and the haunting residue of buried trauma.
As grief, trauma, and anger build up for years, it can feel like barbed wire around your throat. It becomes harder to scream, harder to release. All of These Evils is that release.
The EP’s artwork captures this emotional duality perfectly: Yada Yada frontwoman Meagan Hoch appears cloaked in a vintage wedding gown, hunched over in a dark forest, her face obscured by a veil. The imagery, inspired by the song “Control,” symbolizes grief and the loss of autonomy, an act of mourning, but also transformation.
“In the instance of the song, it’s like grieving the loss of control over your own autonomy,” Hoch explains. “The wedding dress is meant to be symbolic of an unrealistic expectation of purity, as well as constriction. The water represents rebirth and acceptance.”
Across All of These Evils, Yada Yada experiments with a heavier garage rock and punk edge, revealing a new dimension of their sound that’s both cathartic and commanding. Songs like “Do You Wanna” and “Zealot” ignite with raw, unfiltered energy, the kind of tracks meant to be screamed in basements and dive bars across Chicago’s DIY scene.
The record opens with a slow, droning prelude that sets the tone for the emotional release to come. It immediately launches into the explosive first single “Psychosis,” which captures the EP’s essence in full force. Hoch’s ethereal voice cuts through layers of dense guitars, her lyrics looping in a manic, hypnotic rhythm: “here we go again in circles / you know I like to spin.” The instrumentals lean into a lush shoegaze soundscape, where walls of fuzz and distortion erupt around her, framing Hoch’s voice in a swirl of beauty and dissonance. The result is an intoxicating collision of chaos and serenity that perfectly encapsulates the record’s descent into catharsis.
That energy surges into “Do You Wanna,” a track that captures Yada Yada’s signature grit and raw, unfiltered live energy. Hoch’s screams are sharper, stronger and more self-assured than ever, which mark an evolution from the band’s Hot Head EP in 2024. Here, her vocals carry both power and precision, embodying the kind of feminine rage that feels electric and necessary. It’s the sound of reclaiming space — the kind of song that makes every woman in the crowd want to push, shove and take up space unapologetically. The track channels the exhilarating chaos of a Yada Yada show, where barricades blur, and emotion spills over the edge.
Later, “Zealot” leans fully into a darker, heavier sound, drawing from the spirit of 90s Riot Grrrl icons like Babes in Toyland and Hole. It’s a snarling, gritty homage to feminine fury. Here, the band’s blend of garage rock soundscapes and punk energy burns hotter than ever.
“Personally, All of These Evils comes from a more introspective place and I've been able to openly talk about it,” Hoch reveals. “Hot Head was kind of a place of unrealized emotions, where this project is more of a reflection of understanding those feelings and exploring that, and growing into it.”
As Yada Yada leans deeper into the gritty 90s garage rock influences that pulse through All of These Evils, the band embraces the raw, unfiltered energy that has defined their live shows across Chicago’s punk circuits. To capture that essence, they enlisted Brian Fox, whose engineering approach helped translate the band’s feral live sound into a studio context without sacrificing its immediacy or edge.
“Brian [Fox] brought the industry expertise that we needed,” says guitarist Wesley Kise. “As soon as we started playing, he immediately got the sound that we were going for, and he leaned into that. He definitely has that Steve Albini school of thought, where he focuses on capturing your live sound rather than enhancing it.”
Fox’s analog-forward methods allowed Yada Yada to experiment with new textures and tones.
“He had a bunch of cool amps and pedals that we could do all the guitar overdubs with,” Kise adds. For the first time, the band even incorporated theremins — or as frontwoman Hoch affectionately calls it, “the magician’s instrument.”
The haunting, oscillating tones you hear on the raw theremin track are, in fact, the band figuring out how to play it in real time, a fitting metaphor for their spirit of experimentation.
“We have been really experimenting with our sound as a band,” Kise continues. “We have a new lineup, so we’ve been learning how to write all together and evolve as a band, whether that be just with writing or recording music.”
The latter half of All of These Evils bursts open with “Like You Said,” the EP’s lead single and one of Yada Yada’s most exhilarating tracks to date. Hoch’s vocals build and break like a storm, growing in intensity until they hit a full-throated release that feels earned and explosive. Meanwhile, the rhythm section locks in with precision and power, grounding the chaos in something driving and unstoppable.
Flowing seamlessly into “Say It,” the momentum continues to climb, refusing to let the listener catch their breath. The song bleeds straight out of “Like You Said” in a reckless, fun, and frenetic burst as the final cathartic buildup that leaves everything on the table. It’s pure release, the sound of a band exhaling after wrestling with grief and rage, as Hoch screams “say it with your chest” throughout the track.
All of These Evils closes with “Control,” a haunting slow burn that stands in stark contrast to the ferocity that precedes it. Stripped back and deliberate, it reveals a more vulnerable side of Yada Yada. Hoch’s voice, intimate and unguarded, carries the weight of survival as she sings, “Foot on my neck / I make light of it.”
As the song unfolds, the tension builds gradually. Guitars shimmer and swell, drums rumble softly beneath, and breathy whispers slip through the mix like ghostly echoes. The arrangement feels cinematic in its restraint, creating a space where every sound feels intentional. By the time Hoch reaches the song’s final declaration — “I’m in control” — it feels less like a hard-won reclamation of power.
By the time All of These Evils closes, Yada Yada has fully burned through the darkness, emerging louder, freer and more powerful than ever.
Photo Credit: Insidious
