Yowler - Black Dog In My Path (2018)

Jones’ first release under the moniker Yowler, a 2015 Double Double Whammy-released cassette (and later LP), The Offer, is a wintery cold reflection on unwanted change, sadness, and the facing down of the realities of loneliness and mental unrest. The songs are somehow quiet even when the instrumentation builds, and clear, even when there is a hazy quality to the recordings. This is likely due to Jones’ voice, which is at once soft and penetrating, warm and distant, and which floats assuredly among the woven arrangement of guitars, synths and harmonies surrounding it. Yowler’s newest album, Black Dog in My Path, expands on these sounds, while exploring past unexplored territory of heavier fuzzy guitars, full band arrangements, and genre-bending tendencies; all this without losing the marked intimacy Jones found in the warmth and delicateness of The Offer.