The Dreadful Yawns
 CD Review by Mike D'Ariano
10/2005
 
           
 

 

   The first time I listened to this album, I was stranded on a boat which we suspected was out of gas, somewhere on the Hudson River about a mile from the mainland. It was sometime around midnight, and we were anticipating a long wait for someone from Sea Tow to ride out and give us some fuel. I had the Dreadful Yawns CD in my bag because it had shown up in my mailbox that afternoon. I knew nothing about it, but figured what the hell, and threw it on. I learned quickly, that the new Dreadful Yawns CD is a tremendously good listen when stranded at sea.

They sound like a lot of other bands from time to time Wilco, Phish, or Coldplay but the overwhelming "hey this sounds like" theme of the record is the Grateful Dead, and not the "wow I took 19 hits of acid and this awful noodly crap that Jerry and the boys are cranking out sounds great to me because I can see the notes forming in the air in a kind of cinemascopic rainbow" Dead the good dead like American Beauty and Workingman's Dead. You know, when they were kinda country.

It's light and airy, filled with cleaver lyrics, steel guitar and harmonica along with hooky choruses and general all purpose greatness. And there is a seventeen-minute jam near the end. Man, I really like this album, and as I'm writing this I am on dry land, so I guess it's a great listen wherever you may be.

Greatness: "Back In The Ground," "Waking Up To You," "The People And The Sky," "Darkness Is Gone," "Get Yourself Back Home."

    
           
     

CD track listing
1.

You Sold the Farm
2.

Get Yourself Back Home
3.

Darkness Is Gone
4.

It's a Charmed Life
5.

Back in the Ground
6.

Part of Your Past
7.

Waking Up to You
8.

Get Straight
9.
Better Things to Do
10.
There's No Place Like Home
11.
Drinking Song
12.
Lullaby
13.
People and the Sky
14.
No Destination
Label: Bomp Records / Release date: 6/21/2005