Behold the latest from the Yell Leaders: one of the mid-western United States' most incisive pop/soul songwriting institutions. "Noxajoy" proves, once and for all, that great records can come from unlikely places. Based in Milwaukee, for the last half a decade or so, the Yell Leaders continue to grow as one of the best pop songwriting units in the US, bar none. Like it's predecessor ("Cornelia Street"), "Noxajoy" is chock full of soul stirring, quirky, melodious pop/rock craftsmanship, in the vein of Del Amitri, XTC, Crowded House, Elvis Costello, Rolling Stones, and even Fleetwood Mac. Comparisons to other artists, however, are not entirely fair. The vocal interplay between Joe Vent and Mary Brown is an organic and unique concoction which has no peer. The rock-steady drumming of Bobby Tanzilo owes as much to Studio One as it does Abbey Road. All of the "tonal" instrumentation on "Noxajoy" were carefully played and edited, to accentuate the songs themselves. For the song is God, according to the gospel of the Yell Leaders. Noxajoy also marks the Yell Leaders' debut at the helm, as they co-produced the disc with Milwaukee legend Bill Stace, at his Walls Have Ears Studio. All of the raw energy of a live show is detectable, but Noxajoy is a studio album in the grand tradition. Here is a brief bio on the band: The Yell Leaders are Milwaukee's premier pop/soul combo. Since their first singles garnered rave reviews from Billboard and the BBC's John Peel, among others, The Yell Leaders have toured regularly throughout the upper Midwest, where they have shared the stage with the likes of Semisonic, K's Choice, Del Amitri, Evan Dando, The Gufs, Citizen King, The Verve Pipe, The Why Store, Cheap Trick, and others. They released Cornelia Street, in May 1999. The 12 original songs track the group's maturation since 1996's Up for Steam EP. "Windchill," the opening track on Up For Steam, a six-song CD EP mixed by Brew City wünderkind Mike Hoffmann (Willy Porter, The Verve Pipe, Victor DeLorenzo), was tapped by Columbia/Tri-Star Television for use in an episode of Party of Five, which airs on the Fox Television network, and the closer, "Fattened to Kill," appears in the film, Beach House, featuring MTV on-air personalities and Melrose Place cast members. A cover of Bruce Springsteen's I Wish I Were Blind was featured on one of the singles culled from One Step Up/Two Steps Back, the EMI/Right Stuff tribute to The Boss. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour.