The second album by Cleveland's
Dreadful Yawns dials back on the woozy space folk of their debut in favor of a lightly psychedelicized country-pop sound along the lines of
Beachwood Sparks or some of
Joe Pernice's projects. Songs like "Get Yourself Back Home" and the jaunty "Darkness Is Gone" trade on shuffle beats, twangy acoustic and electric guitars (including some fine pedal steel on the latter), and sleepily mumbled vocals. Tempos, which before had mostly been at a narcotized crawl, are much more varied this time out; combined with the new "everybody sings" band policy, the more eclectic results are strongly reminiscent of both
the Buffalo Springfield and, more recently,
Teenage Fanclub, bands where the friction of multiple singer/songwriters created enjoyably diverse albums that nonetheless hang together as the work of a single, unified group. Best song: the delicate "It's a Charmed Life," with its whispered lead vocal, hypnotic bass figure, and crisp, ringing psych-folk guitar leads. ~ Stewart Mason