Today, Detroit-born, New York-based Michael Younker releases the second single from his EP Date Nite Denim, due May 30, with “Mr. Communication.” Listen to “Mr. Communication” here and presave Date Nite Denim here.

Michael Younker reads between the lines on “Mr. Communication,” sometimes where there is nothing there to be found: “I hear what isn’t said, not yours, what’s in my head.” With sarcasm that doesn’t take much energy to detect, heavy riffing guitars and straightforward but wild 80s rock n roll drums tell half the story already: that we are here to have a good time. He gets the point across with honesty, simplicity,  levity, and precision.

Of “Mr. Communication,” Michael Younker says, “I have this notebook that I scribble could-be song titles in whenever they come to mind. Thinking I was extraordinarily clever, I jotted down ‘Miss Communication,’ only to discover that, unsurprisingly, there are hundreds of songs by that title. So instead, we have Mr. Communication. Leave the wordplay at the door; this is a song simply about being a master communicator (read: the worst person ever). You know the type.”

“Mr Communication” and previous single “So What!” follow last year’s deceptively un-self-conscious DEVO-esque debut EP Sweet Things. Since then, things are simultaneously getting more cleaned up, juiced up, and messed up. Date Nite Denim is pop songs you can’t stop singing in the shower, but it wears light-wash, worn-in Levis of old fashioned rock ‘n roll that delivers riff after juicy riff. There’s a bravery in the humor and an often-unreachable self-awareness in this brand of rock; Michael Younker’s approach to music yanks the lo-fi origins of garage rock / big riffin’ into clarity. It feels like you’re riding a dirt bike in a shopping mall; like pulling out a Hungry Man TV dinner in a busy 4-star restaurant on a Friday night or eating Pop Rocks as you’re giving the most important speech of your life.

The new music to come is wrapped up intrinsically with the polished artwork Michael sketches up and brings to life. You don’t need a video to see the song in action. A production designer by day, he’s well-attuned to visual storytelling with just one frame: there’s as much urgency in each guitar lick as there is in the parsed down lyrics — and just as much in each detail of a the artwork, hitting the sweet spot between overthinking and rushing through.

Collaborators on the new music include John Zimmerman (drums) and Hunter Jayne (lead guitar), who play in The Muckers and Triathalon, respectively. To Michael, they’re best friends of a decade. Zimmerman and Younker pull song titles out of hats and write based off of only that, while he and Jayne have egged each other one with a flow of, “Oh, you wrote a great song? Watch this.” Now all on the same page, they’re having so much fun with it.

Photo by Chad Chilton
(Hunter Jayne, Michael Younker, John Zimmerman, Scott Dence)

Michael Younker’s voice sits somewhere between Christina Halladay’s brutally charismatic full throttle feeling and the bratty, sassy, tossing-aside cadence of Broncho’s Ryan Lindsey, landing him somewhere near Wavves or Cyndi Lauper on “She Bop.” you’ve got the omni-present Ramones, Violent Femmes, Billy Childish that you’d expect. But, the unashamed big rock motifs on The Donnas’ Spend The Night. It’s in part thanks to this all over, self-admittedly half-blind curious wandering through sound that makes the Michael Younker experience so exhilarating. “Hmm…what if I did a Thin Lizzy song?” he asks, not really knowing much about Thin Lizzy.