The Denver-based Yawpers’ unique set up---overdriven acoustic guitars and drums, equal parts frenzy, solemnity, and menace---alchemically binds snotty rawk ‘n’ roll to the hopeful and fuses the elemental power of the RIFF to the intimacy of a sunset-bound road trip.

The Yawpers formed in 2011 when Parmet and Cook played together at the only speakeasy in Boulder, CO. They added a drummer to the mix and a new trio was born. The band’s name is a nod to Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”: “I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

American Man is the band’s second full-length release. The album taps into the disparate, murky pools of the American musical lexicon; dark country to kinetic punk, acid blues to flared jeans boogie, low-brow backdrops pitted against high-minded literary references. It’s an edgy, engrossing trip.