Minneapolis legend Michael Yonkers has been busier than ever lately, releasing two new albums as well as reissuing an essential lost classic from the '70s. On the all-new Carbohydrates Hydrocarbons, he is backed by heavy-hitters The Blind Shake. Having first played together when paired randomly at a club, the experience was so much fun that playing more shows and recording together seemed inevitable. Thank the stars for random occurrences, because this album of pounding anthems and mind-melting guitar frenzy is easily one of Yonkers' best releases yet.
They are a remarkably tight unit, sounding like they have been playing together far longer than the facts would indicate. The Blind Shake seem to know what makes Yonkers tick by the way they augment the strengths of his particular style of songwriting while still remaining distinctly themselves. They accent all the right moments without obfuscating the focus, adding complementary texture and rhythm that serve the songs perfectly. There's no filler on this album, free of both digression and bullshit.
Yonkers is in exquisite form here, his singing and songwriting particularly well-suited for this band. Many of the song titles are half-formed, unanswerable questions such as "Can It Be," "Why Don't," "Don't I Get," or "When Will We," and the anxiety caused by such imponderables fuels the songs' insistent, driving rhythms that pull listeners along like a riptide into deeper waters. Similarly entrancing are the discordant moments like "Don't Even Try" or the bluesy dirge "Here's What I'm." Even brief but fascinating instrumentals such as "Mega Folly" and "This One Again" induce ecstasy through blissful washes of effects and monstrous slabs of distortion.
Yonkers has persevered through periods of obscurity, not to mention some debilitating health issues, only to prove that his idiosyncratic take on psychedelic rock has remained consistently ahead of the curve the whole time. This album, not to mention its more experimental counterpart Circling the Drain, is essential proof that Yonkers is just as relevant and important today as ever.
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