American EBM virtuosos Youth Code— the product of multi-instrumentalists Sara Taylor and Ryan George— welcome their first proper musical output in five years:Yours, With Malice, incoming May 16 on Sumerian Records.
Yours, With Malice roars and tramples out of the gate like an armor-plated, weaponized bulldozer– pulverizing skulls into fine powder, while bubbling sub-bass, bone-snapping snare hits, sizzling hi-hats and rib-rattling kicks bounce off of the floors like spent shells. Producer Sanford Parker’s powerful production gives the effort a strong shove in the right direction– the subtle but careful ear for melody that connects all the songs, grounds them, and keeps the listener chained to the “repeat” button.Vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Sara Taylor says: “This record was very challenging to make, and once we handed it over to Sanford, he really understood what we wanted to do – it really hits you in the gut.
”Nothing hits harder than life — as they say — and the series of bloody-knuckle bouts to get to the release of Yours, With Malice led to some deep introspection by Youth Code regarding who they are, what they’ve accomplished and their next steps. “I think a lot of people’s stories during the pandemic were about self-reflection, but the ironic thing here is we were already in a state of reemergence and re-imagination of self before the rest of the world was forced to do it,” says Ryan George, pensively. He continues, “We took time and began to workshop and demo vocals on some of the material we had.We never stop writing and are sitting on a mountain of tracks that we can rework and tweak. Not having deadlines surrounding us and in no hurry to get our material out there, all of a sudden the partnership with Sumerian arrived. That sort of ignited a fire and got us to where we are now.
”The grand irony is that during some of that time set aside for self, out came the wolves and legions of soundalikes, swarming like vultures on the assumed corpse of the high court of modern EBM. However, the joke’s on them: Youth Code have spent those years of self-reflection stewing in a simmering cauldron of bile and vitriol, asYours, With Malic eis clearly their most intricate, well-crafted and blood-thirsty release to date.
While some of the sounds and references onYours...come from classic 90s influences such as Nine Inch Nails’ classic Broken/Fixed duality, the untouchable middle period Ministry era that spawned The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, in addition to a plethora of others like Front 242, Cabaret Voltaire, and Portion Control, the core attack has not changed much for the Los Angeles-based duo.
If the music of Youth Code is the sketchy, yellowing passenger van luring in unsuspecting listeners, then the melodies onYours...are the out-stretched hand of unlimited candy that growing legions won’t be able to resist.“I started exploring more melodic vocals on our record with King Yosef [the 2021 collab A Skeleton Key in the Doors of Depression], but I’ve always felt somewhat insecure in my voice... at the same time, Eartha Kitt had a gravelly voice and she was the epitome of a vocalist that ably captured attention– she understood the song and how to make the most of it with what she had.
”What has changed is Youth Code’s attention to detail and their hyper focus on execution in songwriting, two things that can only come from the wellspring of knowledge found in a band that has been at it for more than a decade. The group began in 2012 as a project between partners George and Taylor, inspired by the classic sounds of New Order, Depeche Mode and the hardcore punk that soundtracked so much of their youth. What emerged was a demo cassette that led to a 7” release on Angry Love, the first band unrelated to the legendary Psychic TV to be released on that label. A self-titled album followed, then 2014’s A Place to Stand EP, and 2016’s Commitment to Complications LP, all while touring with a diverse groups like Chelsea Wolfe, HEALTH, Skinny Puppy, and more, in addition to arena shows with My Chemical Romance and main stage appearances with Nine Inch Nails. Heaps of press accolades followed before the pandemic hit, and now, in 2025, the band returns with their magnum opus.
Look for Youth Code to support the new release heavily and extensively in every corner of the world, basically wherever there’s a working PA and a crowd to watch.
