Album Review: John Andrews And The Yawns’ “Bad Posture” Gives Good Nostalgia
From its very beginning, John Andrews and The Yawns’ Bad Posture plays like a vinyl in a 7’0s decor living room. You can’t help but imagine a younger version of you in this time laying down on the carpeted floor and just listening to music that makes you think back on the times when you were thinking forward. Bad Posture goes for the irony about life in that for human beings, of whom only have the present, we consistently think either of the past or the future.
When we think about time, always wonder how we would have livde better in that “old present” or will live better in the “future one”. I mention this because John Andrews wrote Bad Posture as a grand walk down memory Lane. You hear his nostalgia for his childhood or at least the feeling of hope it gave him through guitar strings that seemed strained and stretched like a hand literally reaching for the past. Twinkled keys play throughout songs such as, “Drivers”, “Audrey”, and “Relax” to play up this sense of wanting the perceived bliss that most people view from their past times. There is no denying that Andrews sees the past with rose colored glasses and the result is an album with a strange melancholy because it makes you happy in knowing that you have been happy. Songs like, “Homesick In Heaven” and “Painting A Picture” make euphoria an aftertaste rather than the initial bite its sweet tuning, which frankly I love. It makes me observant of these tracks as if I can hear John Andrews’ thoughts for the emotions that sparked them. It is like having someone do more than just read their diary; it is having them act it out. Moreover, John Andrews has one of the best voices to muster up the nostalgia ,which is a strange compliment I know.
Andrews has a a middling pitched tone that waves to the psychedelia as if it is another layer meant to get you mindful. Sonically, this album is a vortex of synths and instrumentals twisting around you so that you can feel wrapped by its time warp. By Andrews singing his songs straight, calmly, and loosely you get the feeling as if he has been wrapped by time too, which means the walk down memory lane is being done by both you and Andrews. I think what is most stunning about his voice is that it is not one meant to stun. Andrews is all about being casual while taking you to places of your mind and heart that hold the most impactful moments of your life. Such ease makes the Bad Posture breeze by as if 40 minutes are really 40 seconds.
Everyone needs a good record to just pop on when you want to tune out. Bad posture is a record for tuning out by tuning in. You leave your external surroundings by going into internal ones. For more information on John Andrews and The Yawns and to buy Bad Posture Click Here.
