UK four-piece Sons of Alpha Centauri are that rare band who are more comfortable outside their comfort zone. Released last week through Exile on Mainstream, their new album, Push, sees the Swale-based outfit’s to-this-point-instrumental approach cast off in favor of working with San Diego-based vocalist Jonah Matranga, whose career spans three decades in bands like Far and Onelinedrawing in the vast realm of post-hardcore and emo/indie. They also, as founding bassist Nick Hannon describes in the interview below, saw drummer Stevie B. decide to sit out the record owing to creative differences on the direction of the songs, which are weighted but indeed in more of a post-hardcore vein, certainly than the band’s 2019 Buried Memories (review here) 12″ EP/remix (which found the band collaborating with Justin Broadrick of Jesu/Godflesh) or the prior 2018 album, Continuum (review here), let alone their 2008 self-titled debut or work alongside Karma to Burn (discussed here) and Treasure Cat and their eventual collaboration with guitarist Will Mecum (R.I.P. 2021) in Alpha Cat, or their work alongside Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce as Yawning Sons, who earlier this year issued an awaited sophomore full-length, Sky Island (review here), through Ripple Music in answer to that project’s 2009 debut, Ceremony to the Sunset (review here, reissue review here). It is, as Hannon tells it, a manifestation of another part of what makes Sons of Alpha Centauri the band they are.

Sitting in with Hannon, founding guitarist Marlon King, singly-named soundscaper Blake and Matranga is drummer Mitch Wheeler, who has been in Will Haven for the better part of 20 years and also played with The Abominable Iron Sloth. Together, this incarnation of Sons of Alpha Centauri — and it’s worth underscoring the choice to release Push under their own name in terms of how they’re thinking about it stemming from their own earliest ’90s influences — offer nine tracks of crunch riffs that still bear a hallmark atmosphere drawn from their prior work on songs like “Saturn” or maybe the lumbering closer “Own,” but are simply in another direction from what one might’ve expected them to do after Buried Memories or Continuum. I’m sure they could have and may yet produce another LP of instrumental atmospheric and exploratory heavy progressive rock, but as is noted in the conversation that follows, they don’t make it easy on themselves. Whether it’s reconstructing the band and a significant portion of their methodology for Push or the logistical nightmare of bringing in guest vocalists like Dandy Brown, Wendy Rae Fowler, Scott Reeder and Mario Lalli to perform on Yawning Sons tracks when Marlon King both can (and does!) sing on the second record, the Sons of Alpha Centauri guys don’t really seem to be into an idea if they can’t somehow make it what at very least seems like it would be a pain in their own ass.

If it needs to be said I’ll be blunt in saying it: Push isn’t really my thing. It’s not where I come from musically, I’ve never been a huge fan of Matranga‘s vocal style. I do, however, deeply admire the band’s willingness to completely throw a wrench in the gears of expectation, to be honest about their own sonic origins, and to realize those in the way they do throughout the songs. One way or the other, this was an album I wanted to talk about, and while we’re telling truths, Hannon and I have been talking for most of this year about setting up a video chat, first for Yawning Sons and then as we got closer to the announcement for the new Sons of Alpha Centauri as well. The unexpected and tragic April 29 passing of the aforementioned Will Mecum provided a third major topic of discussion, as Hannon pays homage to someone who was obviously a close friend over many years. As he tells it, Mecum gifted him with the statue that appeared on the self-titled Karma to Burn album cover. It’s true. I’ve seen a picture to prove it, and hearing Hannon talk about what that record has meant to him over time and how Mecum‘s gonna-do-what-I-want-no-matter-what attitude toward creativity has influenced Sons of Alpha Centauri gives another context in which to engage with Push and the band’s work in general, their openness to collaboration with artists they admire, and their efforts in doing what it takes to make that happen.

Long in the making, this was a good talk, and I thank Hannon for taking the time.

Please enjoy:

Sons of Alpha Centauri & Yawning Sons Interview with Nick Hannon, Aug. 26, 2021

Sons of Alpha Centauri‘s Push and Yawning Sons‘ Sky Island are both out now through Exile on Mainstream and Ripple Music, respectively. More info at the links.

Sons of Alpha Centauri, Push (2021)

Yawning Sons, Sky Island (2021)

Sons of Alpha Centauri on Facebook

Sons of Alpha Centauri on Bandcamp

Sons of Alpha Centauri website

Exile on Mainstream Records website

Yawning Sons on Facebook

Yawning Sons on Bandcamp

Yawning Sons website

Ripple Music website

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

Ripple Music on Facebook

It is no small task to separate Sky Island — the title referring to the phenomenon of higher-altitude forests on mountains in deserts, as depicted on the front cover — from the context of its predecessor. Issued in 2009 through Lexicon Devil, the first Yawning Sons album was Ceremony to the Sunset (review here), also reissued by Alone Records on vinyl (review here) in 2014. At the core of the release was the collaboration between UK progressive instrumentalists Sons of Alpha Centauri — bassist Nick Hannon, guitarist Marlon King, drummer Stevie B.(Kyle Hanson is also credited with drums) and noisemaker Blake — and founding Yawning Man guitarist Gary Arce. The two parties recorded together for a week in England and enlisted for vocalists a sampling of some of the Californian desert underground’s finest, including Arce‘s bandmate Mario Lalli (also Fatso Jetson), as well as Wendy Rae Fowler (Mark Lanegan Band, Arce‘s WaterWays project) and Scott Reeder (Kyuss, The Obsessed, etc.). To call the results striking is to undersell the quality of the work. I have said before and will probably say again that Ceremony to the Sunset is one of the best desert rock albums ever made, and I stand by that assessment.

The project has been likened to Desert Sessions, the show-up-at-the-studio-and-make-a-record project helmed by Josh Homme. This is incorrect. Yawning Sons are entirely more cohesive, and that’s even clearer on the Ripple Music-issued Sky Island than what’s now to be thought of as the debut. Though Lalli, Fowler and Reeder, as well as Dandy Brown (Hermano, Orquesta del Desierto) and Sons of Alpha Centauri‘s Marlon King add their own personalities to their respective offerings — Brown gets two, which is earned in his performance in them — they do so upon a largely consistent bed of desert-hued heavy psych, marked out by Yawning Sons‘ steady rhythms, Arce‘s signature tone, and a remarkable instrumental flow. They are guests, and the appearances they make comprise a part of the substance of Sky Island, not the whole. That is emphasized in “Passport Beyond the Tides” and “Limitless Artifact,” the two sans-vocal tracks that end sides A and B, respectively. At the same time, Sky Island seems conscious of the standard it’s engaging. Reeder, who would seem to have recorded his own backing track at least in part, tops “Digital Spirit” in harmony that feels like a direct sequel to “Garden Sessions III” and Fowler‘s “Shadows and Echoes,” which leads off side B, effectively channels the spaciousness of “Ghostship – Deadwater” while remaining more grounded.

Still, Sky Island offers more than answer-back or a retread. King‘s contribution to opener “Adrenaline Rush” is enough to make one wonder how Sons of Alpha Centauri have stayed instrumental for so long. I might have switched them it with “Gravity Underwater” the running order, but “Adrenaline Rush” is catchier and that would’ve put Dandy Brown‘s two tracks next to each other, so there are arguments to be made in “Adrenaline Rush”‘s favor as well. Its lyrical narrative, hunting for treasure, seeking out the next titular rush, and so on, is an immediate push on the conception of desert psych as laid back, as well as much of the flow that follows, but it still works sonically, and exemplifies the fact that Yawning Sons don’t need anyone other than themselves to make a track with vocals work. Does that mean a third LP is coming without guests? I have no idea. But the potential is there and apparently has been all along. That they follow “Adrenaline Rush” with the Brown-fronted “Low in the Valley” (as noted) positions them squarely in the desert, and Mario Lalli‘s “Cigarette Footsteps” — the longest inclusion at 8:32 — follows an ethereal narrative that is an outbound joy of sung weirdo poetry and mellow psych, Arce‘s guitar ringing out like the call to prayer it is, a solid but likewise exploratory rhythm happening beneath, never quite hitting the same surge as “Low in the Valley” does when the bass comes forward in its second half, but offering flashes of its own lumber and bolstering the atmosphere in a manner that gives way fluidly to the keyboard intro of “Passport Beyond the Tides.”

That keyboard itself feels different, and is plainly meant to, but makes a fitting complement to the meandering guitar as the longer half of the tracklist rounds out. Interesting that “Adrenaline Rush” and “Passport Beyond the Tides” were recorded in the UK, while the bulk of Sky Island was done at Desert Sky Studios in Joshua Tree, California — the Reeder-topped piece aside. One wonders when those recordings took place, if it was 2019 or earlier. In any case, the inherent differentiation in them only broadens the scope of Sky Island as a whole, and that’s something that “Shadows and Echoes” and “Digital Spirit” benefit from as the album moves gracefully into side B with Fowler‘s echoing lines living up to the intangible nature of her song’s title. Reeder too, come to think of it. Both pieces are short, but effective. Toms and hand percussion back “Digital Spirit” as the guitar and vocals take forward position, Reeder referencing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the lyrics in a way that feels grounding but is transposed into the melancholy of the melody just the same. That leaves “Gravity Underwater” as the final vocalized cut, and it comes through as a return for Yawning Sons — which in itself is fascinating, since so much of what they’ve done as a group has been based around this open collaboration with others.

Simply put, Brown tops “Gravity Underwater” like he belongs there. Able to work in the more open-feeling structure, especially in the later playfulness that comes after the hook, but still following his own course, capable and genuine-feeling in emotional conveyance. Layers back as they push into the second half of the track, and it’s not an instrumental shove that serves as the apex of Sky Island, but that warm-night melody and ambience itself. It carries into the seven-minute “Limitless Artifact,” which caps, again, without vocals, feeling like a parting gift from Arce and Sons of Alpha Centauri and also a last emphasis on what serves as the foundation of the project in the first place. More than a worthy successor, what this second Yawning Sons album does is demonstrate the sustainability of the group. It features elements that are familiar from the debut, the encore guest performances among them, but it also puts forth their most straight-ahead songwriting in “Adrenaline Rush” and a palpable sense of growth as a unit in the experimentalism of “Passport Beyond the Tides,” as well as the sheer flow of “Low in the Valley” and “Cigarette Footsteps,” putting the listener exactly where the band — yeah, a band — want them to be. I won’t speculate on what the future of Yawning Sons might bring, if anything, but the vitality of what they do in these songs professes loudly to forward potential. They may yet have more to say, whatever, whenever, if ever, they choose to say it. 2021 is lucky to have Sky Island in the meantime.

Yawning Sons, Sky Island (2021)

Yawning Sons on Facebook

Yawning Sons on Bandcamp

Yawning Sons website

Ripple Music website

Ripple Music on Bandcamp

Ripple Music on Facebook