From In My Basement Room blog, January 2010

Album Review: Yardsale - Knock Alley West

I've featured Yardsale on the blog before. Check out that post here if you missed it. Go ahead. I'll wait. Okay. Now that you're all caught up, let's continue. Knock Alley West is out! And it was worth the wait. (I've decided to try to start rating albums I "review" with a numerical scale that is totally subjective and based on my own personal taste (see the Cheezeball Manifesto). Each song will get a score out of a possible ten. 10 is pure excellence, e.g. "Dead Flowers", 7-9 pointers are really good to great songs, 4-6 pointer are decent to strong songs, 2-4 pointers are songs that are average, and 0-1 pointers are songs that I would get up to skip even if I'm listening to vinyl and I've been drinking. Heavily.) I've been through the album three times now and here is the score I'm coming up with: 7 of 12 tracks are in the 7-9 point range with two receiving 9's. That's a very solid score. I didn't have to even give out any 1 pointers. The album lets the band show off their wide range of sounds. For example, the opening track "Until I Can't Remember" is guitar-driven rock with obvious Stones influences that would sound at home on a Deadstring Brothers album as well. The last track on the, "May the Lord Grant Me Peace", album is an acoustic country song with gospel and folk traits. Both songs are quite dissimilar, but are perfectly comfortable living under the same roof on this album. Other highlights are some ripping guitar work on "Mississippi's Flooding" and the slow-tempo "Slow Motion." You can buy the album from the band here. If you want to buy the album from the band in person they are having an album release show on Jan 30th at the Vernon Club. They will be performing the album in its entirety and will also be doing an in-store show at Ear X-tacy earlier in the day where you can buy the album also. Check the Yardsale website for more details.