Yawning Man – Pavement Ends
Heavy Psych Sounds Records – 2025
Rock, Stoner, Desert, Psych
Rated: *****
Back when I fell in love with everything that originated from their desert, there were only some dubious quality demo’s and loose songs to be found about this legendary band. And then, almost ten years later, there it was… The first studio album by Yawning Man called Rock Formations. And then another ten years later they toured Europe with the Fatso Jetson & Yawning Man line-ups combined. And for the Deventer show, they had something special, cause earlier that year they had recorded a new Ten East album called Skyline Pressure with Erik Harbers & Pieter Holkenborg from the now defunct Automatic Sam on guitar and bass. A legendary night and something I could never have imagined happening as I listened to those early demo’s and actually thinking back then that I was born in the wrong place and time…
And as we skip another ten years we have now arrived at their seventh studio release, Yawning Man’s Pavement Ends. And even though the pavement might end, and the asphalt might melt into dust and with the right kind of ears you can hear the ghost of those generator parties still hum in the sand, this could surely not be the end for Yawning Man. The sound has aged, matured, slowed down on some levels, but it is still the kind of music that will continue to play when your phone signal dies, and the sun burns your eyes and the mirage winks at you. This is Yawning Man, this is Pavement Ends, music coming through from the far edge of consciousness…
Older, dustier and perhaps not as punky as before, they are still doing their very own thing. The thing that became a scene before anyone ever knew that it could become a scene. Gary Arce and Mario Lalli are the ones that actually played on those sand dunes with those generators and cheap beer, summoning sound out of heat, making those starlight nights truly come alive and shadows become their own entity. They’ve never lost that touch…
Just listen to opening track Burrito Power. You will swear the horizon starts to tilt, guitars moaning across rusted hoods, a bass that crawls forward like a mirage that refuses to stay still. Deliberately slow, heavy and o’ so beautiful. But beautiful in a way that feels like it might just become dangerous, with the wrong choice made. And as you watch the sunset it will be up to you, chuck the half empty bottle to the ground, or guzzle it up and ride those bad intentions…
Gestapo Pop rides the dip in light, the sunset drip, and in fact it just drifts deeper into the haze. Shimmering guitar work depicting Van Gogh like stars becoming a halo of light, looping and bending until you completely lose track of time. And by the time third track Bomba Negra hits, I’ve forgotten what planet I’m on. No longer listening to a simple rock album, but a cinematic and aural adventure drawn by tones eroding themselves into soundscapes.
And as you feel enveloped in the warm embrace of all those constantly degrading tones, you feel its comfort and know the masters of groove are also experts in dream sequences extraordinaire. To bring some of that groove back there’s Dust Suppression, leisurely moving around with cosmic swagger, this shortest track still feels like grand architecture. Gradual and precise, yet o’ so flowing and fluid.
Nine minute title track will take you to the limits and beyond. Desert hypnosis personified, endless in its feel and atmosphere, like a drive towards nowhere, and with a reverb that stretches out like a memory of something that might never actually have happened. And if Pavement Ends does not shut you up, makes you lie down to listen to the desert, than surely closing track Bad Time To Be Alive will. There’s no way to not feel saddened by what this song says with just the title and the forlorn attitude. This is not a protest, but an acknowledgement of everything we collectively have let happen to humanity and the planet. Lie down. Listen. And repeat, it might help. It surely did for me.
And that restorative energy, is part of what makes Pavement Ends so damn good. It never tries to hard, there’s no showmanship, but pure craft. No trickery, just three musicians locked tightly into each other’s pulse that they might as well use the same heart. Maybe they already do. And if you long for the sun and know that everything starts with that golden orb and that as long as the sun rises there can still be hope, this album will certainly strike a chord with you. Exhale, let the horizon do the talking, just like Yawning Man. You can leave your despair and expectations on the road behind your, exactly… There, where the Pavement Ends…
(Written by JK)
Pavement Ends comes out November 14th, but you can listen to Yawning Man’s first single Bomba Negra right now over on the Heavy Psych Sounds bandcamp page…
Bandcamp
Instagram
Facebook
Heavy Psych Sounds