Evangelic Girl is a Gun
For more than a decade, the musician born Nat Ćmiel has been exploring what it means to be a 21st-century human (or post-human): On 2022’s *Glitch Princess*, yeule probed the limits of the flesh by way of modulated vocals and decaying Danny L Harle beats; on 2023’s *softscars*, the artist who once identified as a cyborg tiptoed into the corporeal world, inspired by the fuzzy rock music of the late ’90s. Their fourth album, *Evangelic Girl Is a Gun*, takes their glitchy avant-pop even further out of the matrix, eschewing Auto-Tune entirely to showcase their vocals at their rawest and most visceral. Enchantingly abject vignettes about doomed love and ego death play out over sexy-sad soundscapes that draw from ’90s trip-hop and alt-rock, with production from Mura Masa, A. G. Cook, and Clams Casino. Imagine the most morose possible version of a Charli xcx song and you’ve got the title track, on which yeule purrs dispassionately: “Nosebleed on the Sunset Strip/He picks me up in a fast whip/He laces up my leather boots/He wears a blood-stained velvet suit.”
The shapeshifting pop producer and vocalist’s fourth album summons the chilly cool of trip-hop, but doesn’t do much to differentiate from the heavily referenced source material.
Yeule's Evangelic Girl is a Gun is a swift paced, short but substantial listen that’s cool with a murky finish.
There are few musicians more committed to their artistry than yeule. A part-time painter, part-time performer, the art-punk icon carves out audio-visual
Yeule has come a long way from their early years traveling distant galaxies. Ćmiel's melodies are exemplary pop, and their vocals exude an incorporeal flair.