West Coasting Vol. 1 - Dreams Like This Must Die (Seattle circa 91)

We last heard from C.J. Boyd on 2009's stellar "Aerial Roots". Well, 647 shows later he is back with the wildly ambitious "West Coasting Vol. 1 - Dreams Like This Must Die (Seattle circa 91)".   'West Coasting' is C.J. Boyd's attempt at a grunge era "covers album", re-worked and scrambled into two 20-minute atmospheric movements. An homage to the influential music of his adolescence (as evidenced by the front cover high school photo of C.J. wearing a Pearl Jam shirt), C.J. Boyd has created a meditative, atmospheric rendering of '91-era Seattle. Songs slowly build from singular, meditative bass lines into explosive, layered, and hugely complex walls of sound - only to realize "wait, is that "temple of the dog?!?!".