Petey USA is having a moment, one full-blown identity crisis at a time. On The Yips, his latest genre-scrambling fever dream produced by Death Cab For Cutie’s Chris Walla, the Michigan-born, L.A.-based artist turns performance anxiety into a full-blown, beer-soaked concept album set in a fictional dive bar called The Yips Tavern. This is where the wheels come off.

The term “the yips” usually describes athletes who suddenly forget how to do the thing they’ve done their whole lives, like throw a pitch, sink a putt, hit a free throw. Petey, ever the emotional anthropologist, flips it into a metaphor for day-to-day psychological slumps. “The album’s about going through a period where just nothing’s clicking,” he says. “So you go to a bar where everyone can collect themselves and get drunk.”

The Yips plays like a voyeur’s mixtape from a bar's corner booth. Each track drops you into a different table’s conversation - anxious confessions, tender regrets, hopeful epiphanies – all delivered in Petey’s cracked, shout-sung sincerity over waves of synth, guitar fuzz, and electro-pop whimsy. Think LCD Soundsystem by way of Midwest emo and comedy-club trauma bonding. Walla’s touch is subtle but essential. The man behind Death Cab’s Transatlanticism gives the record a spacious, emotional purity, allowing it to breathe even when it’s screaming. “He was my number one choice,” Petey says. “I’ve studied how he made those Death Cab records. Getting to work with him was unreal.”

For all its concept-album ambition, The Yips never feels heavy-handed. It’s too chaotic, too human. There’s something oddly comforting about watching someone unravel so artfully. Petey understands that vulnerability, when framed right, can be a superpower. So go ahead. Take a seat at the bar. Someone’s always mid-story, and the jukebox is stuck on something that sounds like both a panic attack and a pep talk. That’s The Yips - a concept album for anyone who’s ever lost their way and found a little bit of themselves in the confines of a barroom booth.