Ancestors’ new three-song EP, Invisible White, lives up to its name, a wonderful wash of floating melodies high in Floydian-psych skies. The lush acoustics, multi-part vocal harmonies, elegantly atmospheric piano, foggy synth, and escalating dream-bliss found on the songs “Invisible White,” “Dust,” and “Epilogue” is far more mellow than anything the LA band has done before, but they still stretch it out over nearly 30 minutes of mind-bending time, which when you’re dealing with a band like Ancestors, can feel like a perfectly groovy eternity. My guess is, Invisible White sounds best when you’re laying in a field, tuned out and lost in the long grass. If you happen to be stuck in some concrete jungle, just put on a set of really good headphones and let the music transport you there.
D.S. Yancey Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands
Thinker Thought Records
So, who the hell is D.S. Yancey? Well, he’s a trucker. Actually, he’s a trucker with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, so I guess that makes him a blue collar troubadour of sorts. He’s the kind of bare naked and broken folk singer who tells stories of love, loss, and the people and places who fill the American landscape. Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands, the Phoenix singer’s second album, is a musical travelogue, a bittersweet scrapbook filled with heroes, losers, Jesus, hard times, bad luck, the rape of the land, life on the road, and the belief that the oft-dismal pursuit of the American dream means just gettin’ by as best you can. The songs ramble with a country n’ punk soul, Yancey’s voice straining with the emotion of a man who’s seen it all but is still struggling to understand it, and, despite their occasions of misanthropy (or perhaps because of them), provide an abundance of comfort in their dusty truth. If he hasn’t yet, Yancey really ought to be mentioned in the same breath as singer/songwriters like Tim Barry, Chuck Ragan, Cranford Nix, and Jay Bennett. D.S. Yancey, then, is a trucker with an acoustic guitar and a harmonica, headed down the highway that leads to glory.
Listen to “Barstow To Vegas” from Salt the Earth & Fill Your Hands!
Red Sparowes The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer
Sargent House
The best thing about Red Sparowes’ latest album, The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer, for me is that it’s not outwardly advertising its pretentiousness. Ok, so the album title leans a little on the nerdy side, but a quick glance at the song titles and you’ll have to double-check that it is, in fact, a Red Sparowes record. Not since their 2004 demo has the band adorned their inwardly pretentious post-rock with such simple, humble, and dare I say accessible, song titles. You won’t find anything like “And By Our Own Hand Did Every Last Bird Lie Silent in Their Puddles, the Air Barren of Song as the Clouds Drifted Away. For Killing Their Greatest Enemy, the Locusts Noisily Thanked Us and Turned Their Jaws Toward Our Crops, Swallowing Our Greed Whole” on this one. No, sir. Now you get “A Swarm” and “A Mutiny.” So, does this change in absurd narrative also signal an attitude adjustment where the LA band’s sweeping, lush, atmospheric music is concerned? Well, the thing about heavy, beauty-soaked, experimental rock is that it’s geeky by nature, dude, and now matter how it’s dressed up, you’re still probably not hip enough to get it. So, there’s nothing on The Fear… (shortened for brevity) you haven’t got before (or not got, as the case may be) from Red Sparowes except maybe shorter songs and a new female guitarist. It crawls then climbs, soars then drops; crescendos crashing, tempests taunting…that sort of thing. That is to say, it’s all mood-based, epic, instrumental storytelling with enough of a Pelican vibe to please the metal-head in me and enough of a Mogwai vibe to please the shoe-gazer in my wife, and in case you didn’t know, the guitarist is from Isis, if that floats your boat. Basically, if you like your music on a pedestal, if you like it to grab you and shake you like you’re living in a waking dream, Red Sparowes will tickle your inner nerd.
Listen to “In Every Mind” from The Fear is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer!
Ancestors
D.S. Yancey
Red Sparowes