By: Lindsay Holman… full article here.
“With a polished, full-bodied and charismatic sound, Yes Nice stands out in a sea of emerging indie bands.”
“Blindfolded has been acclaimed by critics, and has received considerable alternative radio play in Vancouver, where the band lived at the time.”
Reviewed by Karla Hernández (SoundCheck San Francisco)
“On Yes Nice’s debut full-length album, the Canadian band is close to perfecting the art of the serenade.”
“With warm melodies and lyrics for lovers on cloud nine, the self-titled album is an easy and fun listen for any occasion and mood.”
“The songs’ dynamics and adorning of violins and xylophone maintain the listener’s interest.”
Reviewed by Josh Marcellin (See Magazine)
Recent Edmonton ex-pats Nathaniel Wong and Scott McKellar — a.k.a Yes Nice — bare their souls on their beautiful and ethereal new album Blindfolded. The tracks are rich and full soundscapes; with lush orchestration, soaring background vocals, and mournful cello’s swirling around their songs of passion and longing. “Don’t you know it’s only cause you can’t/You want to love her like you love yourself,” Wongs mourns on the wistful “Only cause’ You Can’t.” Much of the album is dreamy meditation – the perfect soundtrack for gazing out your frost-whorled windowpanes at the tundra outside — but when the boys kick it up-tempo they have enough zeal to bring a smile to even the most jaded hipster. “I wanna wait for judgment day/You say ice and I say up in flames,” Scott McKellar belts with unbridled passion on the jubilant gallop of “Horses” — possibly the funnest song about the end of the world not written by R.E.M. Gorgeous and nuanced, Blindfolded will warm your heart on the coldest winter night.
Reviewed by Doug Mackenzie. Full article here…
Yes Nice is an orchestral pop duo that has recently escaped the tundra of Edmonton, to attend art school and be near the sea in Vancouver. Blindfolded, their second album, is an intriguing and tuneful collection of songs, full of lush, layered instruments. In fact, between them, Scott McKellar and Nathaniel Wong seem to play about a dozen different musical instruments, bending the timbres of acoustic and electric guitar, piano, strings, flute, woodwinds, organ and others to the cause of giving their music voice.
Having the option of playing whichever of those instruments best suits the song gives them an awesome degree of freedom in crafting the album—they have access to many sounds, but the lushness and diversity of sound is different from that of a band like Broken Social Scene or Arcade Fire; in those bands, a different person is behind each instrument, and one can sense that the more unified vision of only two artists lends the affair a more cohesive, orderly air.
But one can’t compare Yes Nice to the aforementioned bands too much. They are an entirely different experience, this album is quite polished and carefully arranged. There is a sense of it being composed, of having some of the Hylozoists’ neo-orchestral sense of harmony and counterpoint, and some of the Beatles’ episodic multi-section tendencies. Though not constantly riveting and sometimes too busy, it works well thought of as an extended suite—several of the songs transition seamlessly to the next, and each holds its place as a step through the larger work.
For myself, the three-minute high point of the album is “Horses,” with its energetic, constant, syncopated beat; its handclaps, whistling, and joyful, massed vocals, with their African-esque melody and gospel lyrics. Only after these catchy elements take hold do Yes Nice tastefully embellish the proceedings with strings and organs.
It’s hard not to see the album in a different light after “Horses.” It’s a question of direction really: will the duo lock onto the energy they tapped in that song? Whether they want to is up to them, but next time around it may make the difference between quite good, and, as this is, superlative.
By Paul Blinov (Vue Magazine)
On Blindfolded, ex-Edmontonian group Yes Nice sounds like the Arcade Fire caught in a warm updraft: sweeping, often joyous string-loaded pop music that swells with kaleidoscopic colours. Opener “Empty Space” bursts at the seams in covering all of that; quieter numbers, like “And The Whale,” with its omni-present hum or ivory-key closer “Mountain Man” hold up, well, nicely when the band strips away the barrage of instruments and sounds, too. Strange standout “Horses,” with a religious chorus of “I’m gonna wait till judgement day / You say ice and I say up in flames.” Musically, wouldn’t be out of place on Paul Simon‘s “Graceland”, or just where it is, as the penultimate track on an album of above-par indie pop.
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