I got to see this band at California Plaza in downtown LA on a recent lunch hour, and they just blew me away. LA WEEKLY has picked them as the Best Alternative Country Band, and it's a joy to share the great pleasure they bring to playing their own compositions in the California country rock tradition. This CD captures much of that spirit and adds a good many studio touches to sweeten the mix.

The CD kicks off with an eco-conscious number, "Hope Against Hope," and establishes some of the dominant styles of the whole set: haunting steel guitar, strong vocals, literate and elusive lyrics, soulful harmonizing, and wonderful fiddle flourishes. It evokes escape from the city and images of the open road.

The rest of the CD segues from one style of country rock to another, with cameo influences you can trace to Talking Heads, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, The Eagles, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix, and Grand Ole Opry. The lyrics of some songs are elliptical ("Humboldt"), while others tell stories that focus on an experience, a person, and a set of feelings ("Hitchhiker"). While one song is a slyly humorous hung-over love song ("Still Want You"); another verges on hysteria and paranoia ("Wonder Valley Fight Song"); and another reaches for Revelations-inspired weirdness and a kind of gleeful melancholy. "I Stayed Away," with its sorrowful lyrics and upbeat tempo is a great two-step dance song.

The title song, "Grapevine," comes last and celebrates the northbound exit from LA along I-5 over the Tehachapi Mountains to the San Joaquin Valley. It's a fitting ending to this great collection of songs that features place names from all over the country, references to open roads, 18-wheelers, and American cars. Fans will also enjoy Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen's "Way Out West."

These guy's are making California Alt-country, and if you don't know what that sounds like, I strongly suggest that you check them out. With three discs to their credit, and all of them being great, they're starting to make one hell of a name for themselves. They're the buzz in that state, and it won't be long before their sound branches out to the masses. Of course, being an honest roots band doesn't get you major record deals these days, but it's nice to know there's still some great outfits like this keeping the real "no depression" folks happy. Highly recomended. Get all their music at www.cdbaby.com. Also check out these groups: Wrinkled Neck Mules, and Bucksworth (the best roots rock outfit there is today),very impressive young groups that are keeping honest music alive.

This is a great album, the captures the true spirit of country music and channels it through so many moods, styles, emotions, and locales, and yet remains so thoroughly Californian. This is an album for when you've lost all hope: the Hawks are there to save your soul. If you haven't heard their first album, "I See Hawks In L.A.", that was great too, but "Grapevine" just has to be experienced.