Let’s all take a moment to lament the death of WU LYF. Following a cryptic Youtube message from front man Ellery Roberts, it would seem that the mysterious Mancunians have parted ways.
Apparently Ellery is in the midst of an epiphany, and is about to embark on some great journey of discovery. His message read, “We done business to be as free as we want to be; I’m exercising this freedom. Manchester and the life we maintaining is leaving me empty. It is a beautiful/incredible/insane world we live and I’m done walking around in baby step circles in a self involved bubble… WU LYF isn’t that important. So go do what you want to do. If you wanna play together, Play! Your talented musicians so don’t waste that. I am bored of the most challenging thing in WU LYF being deluding myself of its relevance.” The message (which has since been removed from Youtube), released with previously unheard track ‘T R I U M P H’, ended with the words ‘WU LYF is dead to me’.
Putting Ellery’s awful grammar and punctuation aside (you’re means you are, YOUR MEANS YOUR), one can’t help but feel he has an inflated sense of self-importance and grandeur. Maybe he’s about to crack string theory or backpack barefooted across the Himalayas as a means of achieving eternal enlightenment, but I’m doubtful his future endeavours will be more relevant than WU LYF.
The four-piece’s first album, Go Tell Fire to the Mountain, released in June 2011 was an absolute cracker. Ellery’s raw, primal vocals gave the band a unique sound that has burned their lyrics indelibly on to my brain. The venomous bark with which Ellery delivers the refrain of standout track ‘Spitting Blood’ encapsulated the spirit of their evocative debut.
Alas, it seems that this is indeed the end of World Unite! Lucifer Youth Foundation. A band of many curiosities and complexities, perhaps it was fitting that a band that began life as a gang of anonymous youths shrouded by smoke would die through a cryptic Youtube video.
Discover WU LYF: Official // Twitter
By Tom Ritchie
Dance Yrself Clean
