Review by Luke Torn in Uncut Magazine: "San Fran-based Yerkey stakes his claim as inheritor of a twisted world view best expressed in song by Warren Zevon and Tom Waits. Metaneonatureboy, with its densely textured musical tapestry (horns, harmonica, flutes and lap-steel), roams from spooky goth ("Dark And Bloody Ground") to love-drunk ("Alice Macallister"), zigzagging toward its remarkable finale, "Stinson Beach Road," a psychedelic musical equivalent to Kerouac's Dharma Bums." Produced by Eric Drew Feldman (Captain Beefheart, Pere Ubu, Snakefinger, PJ Harvey, Pixies) and featuring stellar instrumental support from Scott Amendola (Norah Jones, Charlie Hunter), Ralph Carney (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), Joe Gore (Tom Waits, PJ Harvey) and David Phillips (Tom Waits, Mr. Bungle), Yerkey and crew create a rich backdrop for these tales of life, love, Link Wray and murder. From the review by Chris DeLine for Culturebully "...Metaneonatureboy would be an album that I would call alternative, and after simply one song in, it’s easy to understand that Yerkey is truthfully “making the kind of music that he wanted to hear at the time.” Starting with a two song bluesy set, including the dark, despondent Delta track “Dark and Bloody Ground.” “Fall Out of Love” inspires what would become an ongoing theme of deeply rooted instrumental versatility, with its inclusion of piano, clarinet, saxophone, trombone, a little guitar, a little bass, and backing vocals by Colleen Browne. “Alice MacAllister” offers my favorite “love as an intoxicant” lyric as of late, “I’m drunk at breakfast, I’m drunk at dinner, I’m drunk at…Alice MacAllister.” Not to be out done however by anecdotal “Cadillacs of that Color;” “‘Reverend Ike, how can you help people riding in a car that looks like a pickle?’ And he fixed me with an intense stare and said, ‘Little boy, how can I help people riding on a bicycle?’” “My Baby Love the Western Violence,” offers a slick, hip politically incorrect love psalm. Taking a trip through what can only be affectionately called lounge-core, and “Link Wray’s Girlfriend,” the album ends with the ten minute “Stinson Beach Road;” a song deeply entranced in instrumental ossification. Your favorite music is alternative…? take a listen and tell and please reconsider the lingo." From an article by Jennifer Kelly for neumu, 1996: "Lyrics From a Parked Car Yerkey says he'd written many of the melodies on Metaneonatureboy in the late 1990s, but didn't get around to the lyrics until 2004, when, back in San Francisco, he found himself with time to kill in a parked car. At the time, Yerkey was sleeping in a friend's photography studio, but had to vacate the premises during working hours. "So I'd get up and get my guitar and get in the car and go down, since I lived there for so long I knew where you could go and sit around, and I'd just play my guitar," he said, adding that it was an unusually productive period. "If you're playing guitar at home, you'll goof off. You'll get on the computer or something," he said. "I don't like writing lyrics," Yerkey admitted. "So what I'll do is I'll sit there with a guitar and I'll have chords and I'll hum something or other. That's the part that really lags behind," he said. "That's the part that I wish I did better." Yerkey said he envies writers like Neil Young who seem to conceive of the melody and the lyrics together, banging out a cohesive song in a single sitting. "Like in the Neil Young movie, for instance, he does 'I Am a Child' and 'The Needle and the Damage Done'," he said. "You can hear these little short songs and you can tell that he probably wrote them in 10 or 15 minutes, and I thought, man, that must be where it's at." Yerkey's best songs are far from simple, though, either in conception or execution. "My Baby Loves the Western Violence," for instance, is a litany of violent images in jaunty couplets like "My baby love the Unabomber/ Greatest dude since Jeffrey Dahmer/ My baby love the vivisection/ Of the Valley housewives and the death injection." It is also a sly tribute to an obscure Coasters wannabe band called The Robins, who wrote a little-known song called "My Baby Loves the Western Movies," complete with cheesy gunshot sound effects. "It was just like a Coasters song," Yerkey said. "It was old record-making business in action. They literally wanted to make you think they were somebody else, which was the Coasters." And, to add yet another layer, it's a commentary on the current governor of California, the "governator" so beloved of the title character. Musically the songs are complicated, too, with contrasting genres placed in very close proximity. For instance, on the lovely "Translated From Love," a country pedal-steel guitar intertwines with a jazz clarinet solo as if there were no boundaries between the two musical styles — and for the space of this single song at least, there aren't. Ben Goldberg, the clarinetist who also arranged the big-band opening at the beginning of "Mood Swing Era," gets an old-fashioned sound on the solo that Yerkey particularly likes. "If you listen, he's playing with a little bit of vibrato, but the original people who did the big vibrato were Sidney Bechet," he said. "I love how woody it is and how much grain it has, this vibrato. It's kind of soulful and at the same time, it's kind of outrageous. But that style went out of style." As on his debut record, Yerkey worked with Eric Drew Feldman. "He's gotten really, really good at getting performances," Yerkey said of his producer. "You know, he was in Beefheart's band and he was in Polly Harvey's band, I think he was in the Pixies for a tiny little while. He was in one of my favorite bands, called Pere Ubu... these really pretty far-out, pretty hard-edged rock 'n' roll bands. Pretty uncompromising. And of course the way life is, you'd think he'd be some sort of hard-assed punk guy and he's not that way at all. He's very low-key and easy to work with. "The other thing with working with somebody who is that hip is that you don't worry about being unhip," he added. "Like with 'Cadillacs of That Color,' I said, 'Hey, can we make it like Huey Lewis at the end?' And he says, 'Sure.' He doesn't worry that his name's on it." Yerkey's band includes long-time collaborators like jazz drummer Scott Amendola and electric-turned-stand-up bass player Chris Key, who is also a public defender for the city of Oakland, California. Will Bernard, one of Yerkey's many former band members, plays guitar and banjo and David Phillips plays pedal Steel. Goldberg kicks in clarinet on a couple of tracks, and also did the jazz arrangements. That's the core band, though for several tracks, especially the 10-minute-plus "Stinson Beach Road" the cast of characters expanded considerably. This closing track was intended as the final 1960s freak-out, the long Quicksilver Messenger Service-referencing cut that existed solely to "blow people's minds." "That was really terrifying to record," Yerkey recalled. "It was so complicated and there were so many changes, and you had all these people walking around with sheet music, which intimidates me because I don't read and write music. There were all these people walking around with sheet music saying, 'Have you got the 48 through the 52nd bar?' And I thought, 'Oh boy, this sounds like the Ford Motor Company.'" Yet the piece hangs together psychedelically throughout its lengthy duration, showing none of the strain and all of the wandering brilliance that went into its making. " From the review by Darrin Frew for HipDispleasure: "There’s no shame in not having previously heard of Stephen Yerkey. You don’t get much more off the music scene radar than working, as Yerkey does, in a juvenile security facility. On top of that it’s taken him 12 years to follow up his debut album ‘Confidence, Man’ released way back in 1994. No, the real shame would be, having been tipped off as to his existence, not to give this album the chance it deserves to impress you. Aided by Eric Drew Feldman on production duties (PJ Harvey, Frank Black) Yerkey peddles the sort of jazzy/honky-tonky/bluesy hybrid that a more straight forward Captain Beefheart might if he teamed up with Ry Cooder and Louis Armstrong. Split evenly between rockier numbers and slower, more atmospheric tracks, it’s the latter that really stand out, although that is not intended as a slight on the up tempo bar blues of ‘Songs Put Things’ or ‘Link Wray’s Girlfriend’ which are well above average in their own right. Highlights include ‘Dark And Bloody Ground’ which would sit comfortably on the ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack while ‘Fall Out Of Love’ could be straight out of a 1940′s LA piano lounge filled with grizzled private detectives, chain smoking while they ponder, heart broken, over the Ava Gardner look-a-like that slinked into their office three weeks hence. ‘Mood Swing Era’ offers a late night jazz vocal that combines grooviness with an ominous, disturbing air, courtesy of woodwind interludes, that’s reminiscent of The Beatles ‘A Day in the Life’. This is adult music with the weight of experience behind it and the lyrics are some of the most interesting heard in a while, particularily on ‘My Baby Loves The Western Violence’ which you suspect have been gleaned from his experiences working in a security facility. Those looking for cheap, tinny or frantic thrills will no doubt want to look elsewhere but for those left, this twin sided peregrine of an album will no doubt find a happy home among your racks." From the review by Jennifer Kelly for Nuemu: "It would be so easy to compare Stephen Yerkey to Tom Waits. Both are rooted in traditional genres including blues, folk, jazz and country. Both are cracked to the core, deep bubbling wells of weirdness oozing out of well-made song structures. Both are unclassifiable... But no, too easy. Stephen Yerkey is Stephen Yerkey, his haunting falsetto drifting out of cheesy bossa-nova ballads like Jeff Buckley in a psychotic trance state, his sinister ZZ Top guitar vamp overlaid with surreal visions of violence, his closely constructed lyrical lines studded with alternate pronunciations ("hookacalyptus" trees and "oona"-bombers.) This is about as odd an album as you'll ever love, and if it creeps you out late at night as it plays over and over in your head, don't say I didn't warn you. Like his last record, 1994's Confidence Man, Metaneonatureboy was produced by Eric Drew Feldman, who is, perhaps, responsible for the clarity and polish on this very eccentrically constructed album. Feldman has, of course, worked with such mainstream artists as PJ Harvey, the Polyphonic Spree and Frank Black, but none of them have ever written a song like "My Baby Loves the Western Violence" or "Cadillacs of That Color," both so freakishly good that they might have come from a parallel universe. In fact, the entire middle section of Metaneonatureboy, everything from "Alice McAllister" to "Link Wray's Girlfriend," is transcendent stuff of the funhouse-mirror variety. The slower, more sentimental cuts have their virtues, but Yerkey's metier is satire, delivered so dead seriously that you can only hope he's kidding. "Cadillacs of That Color" starts as a spoken-word piece; against the moan of horns and the sound of incoming tide, Yerkey's high, scratchy voice describes a school field trip to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. He regales us with the glories of nature, flora and fauna in Technicolor detail, then a teacher asks if the class can relate all this to anything else they know. "I have seen Cadillacs of that color..." comes the chorus, rollicking and sardonic, as Yerkey links "Salvia of red, purple, green and blue" to the Reverend Ike's flashy ride. ("And I said, 'Reverend Ike, how can you help people/ Riding in a car that looks like a long dill pickle?' and he fixed me with an intense stare and said,/ 'Little Boy, how can I help people riding a bicycle?'") Subsequent verses compare teenaged hookers and beaten-to-death drifters to "Cadillacs of that color," while slyly sending up sex and cops and middle-class anxieties about parking in bad neighborhoods. The song is very funny, all the more so because it is delivered with absolute deadpan seriousness. The best song, though, is "My Baby Love the Western Violence," which relentlessly piles up the noir images, one after the other. The girl in this song is one scary lady, who "love the severed loggers, the river rapists and the serrated joggers..." among other lurid things. The lyrics are wicked fun, full of jagged lines and unusual words that rhymed, and it all sits atop a smoky, Sam Spade musical vibe, with blowsy sax and whammy-bent guitar chords adding to the general dissolution. This is brilliantly individual stuff, so odd and off-kilter that you almost don't notice the skill behind the songs. It's there, though. Anyone can sing crazy stuff... very few can make it as madly coherent and compelling as Stephen Yerkey." From the review by Steve Klingaman for Minor 7th: " In describing Stephen Yerkey's "Metaneonatureboy," the word auteur comes to mind. From the wordplay of the title to the exquisitely posited vignettes presented with a slightly salacious point of view, this dude delivers. The slightly bent world of Tom Waits comes to mind-as set in San Francisco and environs. Yerkey eases you in to his iconography with the unreconstructed roadhouse feel of "Songs Put Things" before yanking you into the far stranger territory of "Dark and Bloody Ground." It's film noir for the ears. His voice may be an acquired taste, and there are no compromises in "Bloody Ground," but by the end of the disc you are bound to be initiated. Track 3, "Fall Out of Love," highlights Yerkey's eye for detail over the lovely wood/brass arrangements by Ben Goldberg. And where else do you find lyrics like "I'd rather witness a tragic hydraulic lift accident."? His evocative lyrics, "Her house is dark and quiet as an Arabian mosque"-("Alice MacAllister") shine darkly throughout. "Cadillacs of That Color" is an astounding Waitsian opus that clocks in at over seven minutes, incorporating Golden Gate Park's botanical gardens, a Cadillac preacher, and an inside-joke ending that can only truly be appreciated by an S.F. native. "My Baby Love the Western Violence" is possessed of a dark, dark, California moxie. "Mood Swing Era" is a moody clarinet. "Link Wray's Girlfriend" allows us to add "Vichy France" and "barcalounger" to the pop music lexicon. The second opus of this oeuvre, "Stinson Beach Road," which clocks in at 10 minutes, takes us right past my old nude beach up to Bolinas, home of some of the wildest chemists, shamans and poets you ever want to meet. Don't look for any road signs along the way, just buy it." Stephen Yerkey- Vocal, Acoustic Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion, Electric Guitar, Backing Vocals, Songs Scott Amendola- Drums, Percussion Will Bernard- Lap Steel Guitar, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Fender VI Guitar, Banjo Colleen Browne- Backing Vocals Ralph Carney- Bass Sax, Baritone Sax, Tenor Sax, Trombone, Pocket Trumpet, Bass Flute, Alto Flute, Baritone Horn, Baritone Sax, Alto Flute, Bass Harmonica, Shenai, Bass Panpipes Matt Clark- Piano Jeff Cressman-Trombone Caroline Dahl- Piano Eric Drew Feldman- Producer, Percussion, Optigan Organ, Mellotron Strings and Saxophones, Synthetic Strings, Synthetic Percussion, Chamberlin Cello Eva Jay Fortune- Backing Vocals Joe Gore- Lap Steel Guitar, Fender VI Guitar Ben Goldberg- BFlat Clarinet, Bass Clarinet Chris Kee- Electric and Acoustic Bass Recorded at Hyde Street Studios, San Francisco, CA Engineered by Gabriel Shephard; assisted by Stephen Armstrong and David Paulson Mastered by Mark Chalecki at Capitol Mastering, Hollywood, CA