Single review by Bárbara Almeida

If there’s one thing I can relate to these days is the feeling that I’ve wasted my youth being stuck at home. I missed my friends and going out until the crack of dawn and so did YNES. Her new single ‘Used to Be’ encapsulates this exact feeling of wanting to, in YNES words, “ruin my life”. It echoes the once barely noticeable, but now all-encompassing feeling of shedding your youth in its entirety.

Know for her Britpop-Punk sound, YNES often resembles the likes of Siouxsie and the Banshees, Kate Nash, and Lily Allen and doesn’t disappoint. She delivers a song that sounds very much like her — honest and raw. YNES first meanders through the subtle changes we all experience growing up, before peaking at a claustrophobic and overwhelming sense of loss. 

‘Used to Be’ is a song of many layers and feelings. It invokes an emotion often stifled due to the uniformity of adult life, but also takes us back to the good old days when we felt forever protected by our youth and naivety and it feels good to reminisce those days!