Exit Stencil Recordings

Dreadful Yawns

Rest is the latest CD from Cleveland, Ohio's Ben Gmetro and his band The Dreadful Yawns. The album was produced by Ben Gmetro and is the first of two records The Dreadful Yawns will be releasing on Exit Stencil Recordings. The creation of Rest is a story full of u-turns, set backs, and challenges that often mirror the turbulence of the band's history. The album took nearly two years to complete and was recorded in three different studios, during which time four of five band members quit. Original tracking was begun by Tim Gerak of Six Parts Seven (Suicide Squeeze). When money ran out, the remnants of the band recorded the bulk of the album at the Davenport Collective Spot. Various overdubs were finished up at Parish Hall by Ryan Weitzel. The songs presented on Rest are logical successors to the psychfolk muses of their Dreadful Yawns album on the legendary Bomp! Records, while at the same time representing a significant aesthetic departure. Originally conceived as a stripped down experimental rock album, over time Rest transformed into an artistic statement filled with lush orchestrations, beautiful pedal steel, finger-picked guitars, and richly layered vocal melodies. Rest finds the band pushing the country influenced rock style exemplified on The Dreadful Yawns to its conceivable limits resulting in a beautiful, timeless, and essential document of the genre.

Guided by principal singer-songwriter Ben Gmetro's constantly evolving and ever-improving songwriting, The Dreadful Yawns have undergone numerous artistic and personnel transformations in their tenure as a band. With their 2003 debut release Early on Chicago's Undertow Music, The Dreadful Yawns drew heavily upon, and gained glowing comparisons to, folk-pop luminaries such as Nick Drake and Neil Young (PopMatters). Following the critical success of Early, The Dreadful Yawns became the last band to sign with Greg Shaw on Bomp! Records, and released their beautifully executed self-titled album in 2005. This release saw a more psychedelic incarnation of the band, garnered them critical acclaim from such storied publications as the Wall Street Journal, and earned them numerous comparisons to both classic and modern psych-folk bands such as Beachwood Sparks and The Byrds.

In keeping with the fluidity of the band's history, The Dreadful Yawns are once again in the process of reinventing themselves musically. Ben Gmetro has assembled a new band in order to achieve his ever changing musical vision which has segued from country and folk sentiments to a looser, more adventurous manifestation of The Dreadful Yawns. The current line-up is comprised of: Ben Gmetro on vocals & guitar, Elizabeth Kelly on vocals, keys, bells, & tambourine, Chris Russo on drums & vocals, Clayton Heuer on keys & violin and Eric Schulte on guitar & vocals.

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