Album Review: Yawning Sons – Sky Island (Ripple Music)

Eleven years after their debut album ‘Ceremony to the Sunset’, UK/California psychedelic rock collaboration; Yawning Sons return with the new album Sky Island. Out on March 26th 2021.

Yawning Sons is a collaboration between Gary Arce (Yawning Man, Big Scenic Nowhere) and the UK post-rockers Sons of Alpha Centauri. A band we have had many good things to say about.

In addition, the new album also features fellow Yawning Man founder Mario Lalli (Fatso Jetson, Desert Sessions), Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed), Dandy Brown (Hermano, Orquesta del Desierto) and Wendy Rae Fowler (Queens of the Stone Age, earthlings?) on vocals.

A mighty desert rock release with elements of stoner and psychedelia to compliment things, Yawning Sons come trudging across the dry and hot horizon to welcome arms.

Stifling heat all around, Sky Island is the blast of cool air that is desperately needed. The pick me up, especially when they begin things in catchy, groovy and rhythmic fashion. As is very much the case with Adrenaline Rush. A chilled opener, it’s the extra crash from the drums and the powerful vocals in the chorus that really appeals.

Low in the Valley bluesy sound is another instant winner. One that encapsulates wide and open spaces with nothing and nobody around for miles. The mellow tune wraps around you like a comforter and the soft vocals lull you to sleep.

It’s Cigarette Footstep that goes about waking you back up… eventually. The catchy guitar melody grows and grows with more and more vigour. Never getting intense, it’s still very relaxed but the potency increases. A little darker, a little more insistent and a hell of a lot of good listening.

It’s been such a great listen so far, but Yawning Sons are just getting started. Bringing out the absolute atmospheric pleasure that is Passport Beyond the Tides. A track that you can imagine listening too while lying in the sun on your back, watching white and fluffy clouds drift by peacefully. It’s simply amazing just how a track like this can put you in such a place.

Suitably chilled out? It’s time for Shadows and Echoes, something with a bit more pep in the step. Which for Yawning Sons means, at best, a light jog rather then a walk. It’s certainly one that has a poppier vibe to the vocals but with the rocking guitar twangs, it works really well.

If your mind, body and soul haven’t turned into jelly already through the sheer chill of Sky Island, allow Digital Spirit to finish the job. Especially as the smoky jazz bar vibes of Gravity Underwear is one that makes you sit up a little straighter in a chair. If you can at this stage of course. Transfixing stuff from Yawning Sons. Hell, at this stage and with one last track to go, it’s safe to say the entire album has been transfixing.

It’s going to take something momentously bad to derail this album and unsurprisingly, it’s not the case as Limitless Artifact ends things in captivatingly unusual fashion. A looser but still focused instrumental effort that has some of the album’s most interesting guitar tones.

How good is this? They could sell this as massage treatment such is the incredible relaxation capabilities of it.

Yawning Sons – Sky Island Full Track Listing:

1. Adrenaline Rush
2. Low in the Valley
3. Cigarette Footstep
4. Passport Beyond the Tides
5. Shadows and Echoes
6. Digital Spirit
7. Gravity Underwear
8. Limitless Artifact

Links

Ripple Music | Yawning Sons – Facebook | Bandcamp |Yawning Man: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Instagram | Sons Of Alpha Centauri: Website | Facebook | Bandcamp | Twitter | Instagram