WEDNESDAY, 4TH JUNE 2025

Yumi Zouma set fire to the past with scorching new single 'Blister'

Yumi Zouma are done playing it soft. With their latest single ‘Blister’, released via Nettwerk, the internationally scattered alternative rock band tears down their dream-pop legacy and delivers a riotous anthem for a new era—one built on grit, distortion, and a fearless sense of abandon.

Where previous releases shimmered with subtle synths and hazy romanticism, ‘Blister’ arrives like a punch through the speaker—raw, raucous, and radiating heat. Driven by Olivia Campion’s relentless breakbeats and the thrashing guitars of Charlie Ryder and Josh Burgess, the track surges forward with frontwoman Christie Simpson howling, “Why you gotta do me like that?!” It’s an unfiltered vocal performance that nods to the volcanic energy of Courtney Love and Kathleen Hanna, cementing ‘Blister’ as a visceral, era-defining pivot.

This bold new chapter follows the band’s unruly Nettwerk debut ‘Bashville on the Sugar’, a single that hinted at the stylistic upheaval to come. But ‘Blister’ makes no bones about it—Yumi Zouma are no longer whispering from the wings. They’ve stepped into the spotlight with steel-toed boots and feedback still ringing in their ears.

“We found strength in simplicity,” the band shares. “The more stripped-down we went, the more forceful the impact became. ‘Blister’ surged ahead on the back of our most anthemic riffs, conjuring images in our minds of C4, Channel Z, prepaid flip-phone text plans, and the Big Day Out main stage under the punishing heat of the hole in the ozone layer.”

That mix of nostalgia and anarchic flair fuels ‘Blister’, tapping into the lineage of 90s and early-2000s rock icons—Blur’s ‘Song 2’, Elastica’s ‘Connection’, Sonic Youth’s ‘Kool Thing’—but filtered through the lens of a band with a decade of evolution behind them.

Originally formed in 2013 across New Zealand’s remote coasts and tight-knit scenes, Yumi Zouma’s journey has spanned continents and genres. Now split across Melbourne, New York, London, and Wellington, the band has continually adapted and expanded their sound across four LPs and multiple EPs, earning accolades from Pitchfork, The Guardian, and Stereogum, and tour slots with Lorde, Jamie xx, and Magdalena Bay.