Name: Yankee Reality [Digipak] *
Brand: Ecstatic Peace!
SKU: 1206747
Price: 8.23 USD
Availability: InStock

Performer Notes

Personnel: Keith Wood (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric 12-string guitar); Jason Ajemian (tuba, Wurlitzer organ, vibraphone); Ryan Sawyer (vibraphone, drums, percussion).
Hush Arbors have drawn their musical blueprint around languid, atmospheric, folk-rock and full-bodied psychedelia that occasionally drifts into thundering hard rock, and for their third full-length album, Yankee Reality, the band has found a more than sympathetic producer in Dinosaur Jr. leader J. Mascis. Mascis co-produced Yankee Reality with Justin Pizzoferrato and contributes guitar, drums, and Mellotron on a few tracks, and the results sound as if a kindred spirit is tagging along for some adventures in the green, leafy meadows of their music; this album may lack the monolithic force of Dinosaur's best work, but the melodic structures (and Keith Wood's vocals style) in many respects recall Mascis' more tuneful and restrained moments, and with a like-minded colleague at the controls, Hush Arbors have made one of their best works to date. Most of the tracks on Yankee Reality move at a deliberate pace, but this band clearly knows where it's going, and the pastoral mood of songs like "Day Before," "Fast Asleep," and "So They Say" belies the emotional intensity that bubbles just below the surface. The guitar work from Wood and Leon Dufficy is low on flash, but sketches out the melodies with clean, bold strokes, and Jason Ajemian's bass and Ryan Sawyer's percussion give the melodies a firm foundation and a gentle but insistent forward momentum. And while Hush Arbors' folkie side dominates Yankee Reality, the group still finds room for their electric guitars to make their presence felt as punctuation, and the closer, "Devil Made You High," is an exhilarating exercise in hard rock noisemaking that distills the melodic calm of the previous nine songs into one concentrated blast of power. Hush Arbors have focused their creative energies to superb effect on Yankee Reality, and few albums with this much quiet possess the aural weight that makes this so satisfying. ~ Mark Deming

Professional Reviews

Pitchfork (Website) - "Yankee Reality's a confident but freewheeling set of finely tuned heartbreakers dressed up in rollicking arrangements that aren't allowed to run riot over the tunes."

Clash (magazine) - "['Take It Easy' is] a warped, honky tonk singalong, akin to a long-lost REVOLVER track. Rarely has reality been as exciting."

Album: Yankee Reality [Digipak] *
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Day Before
2)	Lisbon
3)	Fast Asleep
4)	So They Say
5)	One Way Ticket
6)	Coming Home
7)	Sun Shall
8)	Take It Easy
9)	For While You Slept
10)	Devil Made You High

Album: Yankee Reality [Digipak] *
#	Song Title	Time
1)	Day Before
2)	Lisbon
3)	Fast Asleep
4)	So They Say
5)	One Way Ticket
6)	Coming Home
7)	Sun Shall
8)	Take It Easy
9)	For While You Slept
10)	Devil Made You High