Yawning Man - Vista Point

Yawning Man has been around since the late 80s, but their first releases were in 2005, a double-header of a full length album, Rock Formations, and an EP by the name of Pot Head. In Vista Point these two are condensed into one psychedelic, relaxing, remarkable package.

Yawning Man mixes soaring, psychedelic guitar work with a driving rhythm section and comes out with something better than the sum of its parts. There's no vocals present, and the instrumentation takes present; at times, the album feels like an extended jam. Which would be a bad thing in the hands of lesser musicians, but these are the Lalli brothers, who were and still are hugely influential on the current stoner rock scene. Of course, not many people know about them: this review's purpose is to tell you that you should.

With the title track and Perpetual Oyster, which are both exactly 5:22 minutes, the album gets off on a strong start. The next three tracks, Stoney Lonesome, Split Tooth Thunder and Sonny Bono Memorial Freeway, start to feel a bit samey, but Yawning Man are lucky in that they're peddling a pretty damn good ware. Airport Boulevard stops something that could have turned monotonous with it's rolling drum beat and vicious guitar work. Advanced Darkness is classic stoner played by masters of the craft. A few more tracks, and we're into Pot Head, which finishes off the album.

Pot Head is admittedly a weaker album than Rock Formations, and perhaps could have been structured better: Digital Smoke Signal, one of the best songs on the album, and 7 minutes long, would probably have served better as the concluding track instead of the third last. Yawning Man make up for this, though, by just having Digital Smoke Signal existing.

The main thing I'm trying to get across here is Yawning Man is fucking awesome and sound like the dawn. No, really. There is no more dawny sounding music than this. It sounds unrestrained, too, like the perfect soundtrack to stealing your Dad's car and driving until the gas runs out. When I finally get around to stealing my Dad's car at dawn, this is what I'm putting on.

Get it.