Seth Yacovone Band - SYBlings, VOL. 2

Bitrate:320K/s
Year:2025
Time:41:14 
Size:95,1 MB 
Label:Self-Released 
Styles:Rock/Blues 
Art:Front 

Tracks Listing:
 1. Training Dream - 4:37
 2. The Direction You've Flown - 3:59
 3. Out for Rent - 4:55
 4. All We Can Afford - 5:56
 5. Beyond the Grasp of the Clenched Fist - 4:39
 6. Onward Till the End - 6:19
 7. It Isn't Rational - 3:12
 8. A Pain in the Great One - 7:34

It’s something of a cliché in music that, more often than not, a double album would have been better as a single volume. Think Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion, the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, or Fleetwood Mac’s bloated but beloved Tusk. While those records have their defenders, consensus is that some editing and tasteful cuts would have improved them.
That’s why I’ve always been a fan of splitting up double albums. Sit on that second volume for a few months to make sure it’s something you really want to drop, the way Radiohead released Amnesiac half a year after Kid A. Sadly, some artists struggle to kill their darlings in the mixing booth.
Morrisville singer-songwriter and guitarist Seth Yacovone seems to have run a pretty critical eye over his material for the two albums he dropped in 2025. SYBlings VOL 1 hit in April, followed by SYBlings VOL 2 this fall, marking Yacovone’s first releases in almost seven years. The blues shredder and former child prodigy recorded the tracks with former Rough Francis and current Iggy Pop drummer Urian Hackney at the Box studio in Burlington. The albums were among the final projects mastered at the Lane Gibson studio in Charlotte before it closed in 2024.
Seth Yacovone Band, 'SYBlings VOL 1'
Seth Yacovone Band, ‘SYBlings VOL 2’ 
Each record features just eight tracks, an impressive feat of culling. Yacovone had piled up more than 150 unrecorded songs since releasing Welcome in 2018. Straightforward blues and jam rock is the order of the day on the SYBlings records, focused on the interplay among Yacovone and his bandmates, bassist Alex Budney and drummer Steve Hadeka. The trio has honed its dynamic to a fine science, with Budney and Hadeka expertly backing up Yacovone’s guitar heroics.
And those six-string flexes are all over the two albums. It’s easy to take Yacovone’s guitar prowess for granted because he’s been “that guy” in the Vermont scene for decades. SYBlings should be the antidote to that: Yacovone’s guitar sings, wails and screams from track to track, showcasing both his giant, bluesy, Stevie Ray Vaughn influence as well as some rougher, more progressive traits. The guitar solo on VOL 1’s “I Want to Believe” is one of his finest, a fiery explosion of notes and delicious distortion.
Yacovone isn’t all pyrotechnics, though. Over the years and records, he’s solidified into a distinctive singer-songwriter who writes with a mix of a blues-rock growl, Grateful Dead-esque West Coast sprawl and subdued folk tendencies, all filtered through a tight, well-drilled trio. On tracks such as “Primordial Gold” on VOL 1 and “The Direction You’ve Flown” on VOL 2, Yacovone indulges his quirkier side, alternating between heavy grooves and melody-driven hooks.
If Yacovone had dropped SYBlings as a 16-track double record, would it have been better? Does that even matter in the age of streaming when albums get short shrift from listeners? Maybe, maybe not. But there’s not a lot of fat to these records, and both volumes can be listened to as self-contained recordings, even if it’s clear they’re companion pieces.

SYBlings, VOL. 2