Bands & Performers

Graves

Graves: Yes Yes Okay Okay
Hush Records

Reviewed by Rebekah Zietz in STOP SMILING

It isn’t easy living ones life with their heart on their sleeve. There is pain, rejection and an abundance of uncertainty. Perhaps that is why it remains refreshing to listen to music that questions one of life’s biggestmysteries- love. Yes Yes Okay Okay, the new album from Portland, Oregon’s Graves, seeks to bring to the surface, without clichés or affectation, one’s apprehension about love.

Through the lovelorn lyrics of singer/songwriter Greg Olin and company (Adam Selver, Tommy McDonald, Shelley Short, Cory Gray, Erick Messler, James Adair, Adam Forkner, Dave Longstreth and Marie Marchaisfrom) Yes Yes Okay Okay thrusts the listener into a whirl wind of down tempo, heart-stricken rock that brings to mind such musicians as Jeff Tweedy, Stephen Malkmus, Mark Kozelek, and even The Sea and Cake.

The introductory track, “The Will Now” is a prime illustration of the band’s crisp and earnest sound. Luring electric guitars, drums and swelling vocals build for atmospheric resonance, and head-swaying beats lay neatly juxtaposed to lyrical themes of settling down in a serious relationship. With lyrics like “I’m gonna call you when I am suppose to” and “I’m gonna cut your name into a willow, ” ancient forms of courtship are resurrected and molded into what one can only hope will become a modern day norm.

From there the album leaps into a Wilco-esque ditty entitled “Holding Your Arms,” which begins with some serious hand clapping action that overlaps neatly with the monotonous beating of drums. Olin once again reminds the listener of his distrust for love with lines like “It’s hard trying to love someone who’s holding your arms, whose holding your arms and your heart.”

The standout track on the album, “Sugar Cane And Tough Love” marks Olin’s ability to swoon-fully craft a lyrical story line while simultaneously honing in on a sound that combines the noise quality of Sonic Youth with the keys of The Red House Painters.

Yes Yes Okay Okay gracefully embraces lost love and tries to resurrect it for all of us. The result is that rarity- an inviting, melodic album of renewed sincerity