Album Review: Songs from the Vanished Frontier by Yellowbirds

New York songwriter Sam Cohen spent the better part of the oughts working with Sunshine Apollo, an indie band that wove sun-bleached psychedelia and touches of traditional country into its melodic tunes. When that group reached its end in 2009, Cohen began working solo under the name Yellowbirds, eventually expanding the project into a fully formed band for second album Songs from the Vanished Frontier. Over the album's nine tracks, all penned by Cohen, the band taps into the same gentle haze of his previous work; taking cues from both '60s California pop icons as well as the 1990s-2000s underground groups that adored them.

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Two particularly strong and somewhat abstract notions come to mind with Yellowbirds’ second album, Songs from the Vanished Frontier. One is that this is what you could perfectly describe as timeless music. It sounds like something you could have unearthed while digging through the big box of vinyl records someone left behind, while never sounding particularly retro.

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Yellowbirds, once the solo vehicle of Sunshine Apollo’s Sam Cohen, has developed into a fully-fledged band with the sophomore release, Songs From The Vanished Frontier. As songwriter, singer, and guitarist you still get the feeling that this is very much Cohen’s gig, but the additions of drummer Brian Kantor, vocalist/bassist Annie Nero, and her multi-instrumentalist husband Josh Kaufman have brought further refinement to Cohen’s schtick. Clocking in at under 35 minutes, few of the nine songs risk extemporization.

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