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**WU LYF - Go Tell Fire To The Mountain**
★★★★☆

In the annals of rock mythology, few bands have mastered the art of mystique quite like Manchester's WU LYF. Before they ever stepped foot in a proper recording studio, these four enigmatic Northerners had already cultivated a reputation that bordered on the supernatural. They refused interviews, communicated only through cryptic blog posts, and performed guerrilla gigs in abandoned warehouses across their industrial hometown. By the time "Go Tell Fire To The Mountain" arrived in 2011, WU LYF had transformed from complete unknowns to the most talked-about band in Britain without anyone actually knowing who the hell they were.

The mystery wasn't just marketing – it was existential. Frontman Ellery James Roberts would only speak in what the band called "Heavy Pop," a deliberately obtuse patois that made their rare communiques read like Beat poetry filtered through a broken Google Translate. They claimed to represent "World Unite/Lucifer Youth Foundation," depending on who was asking, and their aesthetic borrowed equally from evangelical fervor and apocalyptic dread. It was performance art masquerading as a rock band, or perhaps the other way around.

When the album finally materialized, it felt less like a debut than a religious experience beamed in from some parallel dimension where Joy Division had discovered gospel music. "Go Tell Fire To The Mountain" is a towering monument to controlled chaos, ten tracks of ecstatic noise that sound like they were recorded in a cathedral during an earthquake. Roberts' voice – a gravelly howl processed through enough reverb to fill the Manchester Arena – serves as both preacher and prophet, delivering sermons in a language only he seems to understand.

The album opens with "L Y F," a two-minute statement of intent that builds from whispered incantations to full-throated proclamation. It's a mission statement wrapped in distortion, setting the stage for what amounts to a 45-minute sonic baptism. "We Bros" follows with one of the record's most accessible moments, if you can call anything on this album accessible. Built around a hypnotic guitar riff that borrows from both Neu! and the Stone Roses, it's the closest WU LYF come to writing an actual song rather than channeling pure emotion through amplifiers.

But it's "Cave Song" where the band truly ascends. Over seven minutes of building intensity, Roberts wails about caves and fire and salvation while the rhythm section pounds out a tribal beat that feels ancient and futuristic simultaneously. The track culminates in a guitar solo that sounds less played than summoned, a moment of pure transcendence that justifies every pretentious press release the band ever issued. "Concrete Gold" matches it for sheer power, a relentless assault that somehow manages to be both crushing and uplifting, like being steamrolled by angels.

The production, handled by the band themselves in various Manchester locations, is deliberately murky. Everything bleeds into everything else – guitars into vocals into drums into the ether. It's the sound of a band determined to create their own universe, complete with its own physics and atmospheric pressure. Some tracks, like "Heavy Pop" and "Spitting Blood," feel more like field recordings from that universe than traditional songs.

The album's final act, comprising "Such A Sad Puppy Dog," "Evans The Death," and "Oil Spills," serves as a comedown from the earlier intensity, though Roberts never quite stops sounding like he's preaching from a mountaintop during a thunderstorm. By the time the feedback fades on the closing track, you're left feeling like you've witnessed something significant, even if you can't quite articulate what.

Tragically, "Go Tell Fire To The Mountain" would prove to be both WU LYF's masterpiece and their swan song. The band imploded in 2012, barely a year after the album's release, victims of their own mythology and the impossible expectations they'd created. Roberts has since emerged with various projects, but nothing has captured the lightning-in-a-bottle magic of this singular statement.

In retrospect, WU LYF's brief existence feels perfectly calibrated. They arrived like prophets, delivered their message, and vanished before anyone could ask too many questions. "Go Tell Fire To The Mountain" remains a testament to the power of pure belief – in music, in mystery, and in the transformative potential of making an unholy racket with complete conviction.