'The Hawks are one of California's unique treasure.' -- Dave Alvin With the February 2012 release of New Kind Of Lonely, their sixth CD, I See Hawks In L.A. wade deeper into the river of the Southern California folk and country rock tradition. Known for their psychedelic electric layering over country and folk music forms, the Hawks have gone back to basics on New Kind of Lonely, cutting 13 songs on acoustic guitars and upright and electric bass, standing in a circle around some nice German microphones. Overdubs of the trademark Hawks vocal harmonies, some dobro, and Gabe Witcher's stellar fiddle complete the sparse, haunting sound. On this CD death and loss, in very personal terms, weave into almost every song, even the hard charging barn dance numbers. In reaching back to pre-electric traditions, the Hawks seem to have tapped into the mortality that looms in the work of Hank Williams, The Stanley Brothers, and the Carter Family, far from the feel-good suburbiana of today's Nashville songwriting. Dark times do need some kind of acknowledgement. I See Hawks In L.A. have taken this on. The finest country-rock band currently flying the freak flag of freedom, eco-peace, and psychedelic transcendence on planet Earth. Their three-part harmonies are unsurpassed, their lyrics the right proportions of literate and twisted, and Lacques's deft picking ranges from hot-grass to fuzzboxed. -Michael Simmons, MOJO 'This Echo Park band has made a career out of keeping the once-dominant California country rock subgenre going, and now for the first time on record they're doing it all acoustically (well, a little electric bass). The wall-of-strums sound is lovely, if not all that different to the ear from earlier Hawks albums. Rob Waller, Paul Lacques and Paul Marshall's three-part harmonies alternately drone and soar like often before, too. What really distinguishes this fifth Hawks album is slightly sharper writing (another of the band's qualities which has always been good) to tell their tales of burnouts, bohemians and cosmic cowboys out of their time. Yes, there is a song called 'I Fell in Love with the Grateful Dead,' and it's as funny as it is heartfelt.' --Bob Strauss, L.A. Daily News 'Graceful, easygoing but meaty, the all-acoustic New Kind of Lonely, album six from the veteran I See Hawks In L.A., evokes the spirit of vintage Southern California folk and country--Gram Parsons, Flying Burrito Brothers--and adds a contemporary bluegrass flair. Now a trio of founding members Rob Waller (lead vocals, guitar) and Paul Lacques (guitar, dobro, vocals) and long-time bassist/vocalist Paul Marshall, ISHILA bolsters it's lineup for this outing with the Punch Brothers' Gabe Witcher on fiddle, Cliff Wagner on banjo, Richie Lawrence on accordion and Dave Raven on drums. As you might guess from songs with titles such as New Kind of Lonely, Your Love Is Going to Kill Me and If You Lead I Will Follow, the texture of personal, even intimate, relationships is in sharp focus here-including a relationship with the Grateful Dead in I Fell in Love with the Grateful Dead, almost five minutes of tribute to the way the fellows became enamored of the Dead's music, message and culture set to a driving arrangement full of cascading guitar lines and fueled by Waller's sturdy, folky tenor (surely yours truly is not the only listener who hears a touch of young Mike Nesmith in his phrasing and timbre). 'This being I See Hawks In L.A., you expect the love songs to be cut from different cloth, and so it is. Your Love is Going to Kill Me encompasses much of what the band has been about in having the action unfold in a finely etched natural world among characters striving for a higher plateau while seeing the folly of all this with a wry sense of humor-Thirty pages of Ulysses, that much closer to the day/when one of us is leaving and the other must remain, begins the song and it continues: Well the western sky reminds me of the time you went all fiery/from a moment's hesitation at our wild and wicked ways/and it wasn't just your beauty or your cos
