Cast - 'Yeah Yeah Yeah' Album Review

Sean Friswell
5 minutes ago
3 min read

Tracklist:

Poison Vine
Don't Look Away
Calling Out Your Name
Free Love
Say Something New
The Way It's Gotta Be (Oh Yeah)
Devil And The Deep
Weight Of The World

So, what do you do when you spend your 2025 touring the world playing to sell out crowds as part of the Oasis reunion extravaganza? I got to see them open the show at Murrayfield and really enjoyed them but if I’m honest I hadn’t listened to them much in the last few years. Well obviously, you go into the studio, record a brilliant new album and release it at the start of 2026.

It must have been a surreal year to be opening for the biggest comeback band of 2025 and get to play some of your classics to an audience that may, or may not, have known you so this album could have gone one or two ways, playing it safe and trying to capitalise on that or playing to your strengths, pushing your boundaries and really going for it.

'Yeah Yeah Yeah' is bluesy, rocky, poppy, soulful, tour de force. The use of brass, of string instruments, of an almost a choir like set of backing singers, judicious application of riffs and knowing how to write a chorus that is easily learnt and sung back to them all shows a band who have thought you know what, we’re good at this and we can show you just how good, so here you go, listen to this.

And you should listen to it, it’s the kind of album that you can put on and play from beginning to end without thinking there is any filler, any dip in the quality. I know not many people play albums the whole way through these days and tend to consume music in bite size chunks but you should put this on, sit back and just let it wash over you, after a few listens you’re going to want to sing along but you should also think about having a dance.

Since reforming in 2011 Cast have been consistently good but as I’ve said above I’ve probably not played them as much as I did first time round but, for me, this album is a step up, its got the feel of something that is both reverential of the past but also rewriting it. I was genuinely surprised by it.

I know John Powers was in the La’s, who wrote one of the greatest pieces of pop/rock music ever and Cast had some massive songs themselves but this is not, for me, a singles album, there is no song that stands out more than the rest but I mean that as a huge compliment.

You will struggle to pick a favourite; it’s one of those albums that you have a different favourite every time to listen to it. I think its got a bit of a British rock and blues invasion of the 60’s feel to it. I know Cast have been allegedly called The Who of Britpop, but I think there are real hints of the Animals and of the Stones to this album with a Beatles underpin. I know that’s some big names I’ve used but I do think the guitars and percussion have that vibe about them on some songs, open song 'Poison Vine' could be a lost Stones songs from the late 60’s if it wasn’t for the facts it’s clearly not Mick singing. When I was playing the album at home I was asked if it was Def Leppard which wasn’t something I’d picked up on, but it also has a Britpop swagger to it on some songs.

It is also unmistakably Cast, John’s voice has more of a rasp to it these days than it used to but there is still a lot of emotion and passion in there.

I think you need to get over any prejudices you might have about listening to a band who have been around for a while, this is a band who are having a creative resurgence. Was it touring? Was it something else? I obviously don’t know but I’m just glad that whatever it is has reinvigorated them.

'Yeah Yeah Yeah' is a top quality album to start the year off, if this is what 2026 is going to be like for music then I’m in. I know it’s shaping up badly in other ways, but this is an album to make you smile, to make you think that life isn’t so bad after all. I love that music can do that, and I love that a band who, perhaps in the eyes of some, aren’t as cool as they once were are showing the way. Give it a go, I think they’ve nailed it.