The Morning Yells - On The Lash (2019)

With “On the Lash,” L.A. ensemble the Morning Yells have crafted a true long-player, an album that connects the dots between 1960s folk music, ’70s radio and Heartland rock and their modern, atmospheric offspring.

Its sound is as big as the open-heartedness that fuels the songs. Sibling harmonies, buoyant choruses, deft guitar work — you’ll find them all in songs that, alternately, touch on the gravitas of the War on Drugs, the earnestness of flannel-shirted troubadours, the bittersweet introspecton of Fleetwood Mac and the anthemic grandeur of Britpop (the Verve’s “Urban Hymns,” for instance). At just eight songs clocking in at just over a half-hour, it’s a laid-back but thoroughly engaging collection of classic influences moved into the present.