MOJO review: On this seventh excellent collection of off-center songs from the finest country rock band on the planet, the harmonies soar like the hawks as they pay homage and from this high vantage point on what they see down on the ground. The band live in the present, are schooled in the past, and are tentatively optimistic there'll be a future. While most of the songs deal in big issues metaphysical and socio-political, they also nail everyday truths as in Stop Driving Like An Asshole and We Could All Be In Laughlin Tonight -- the best road-weary song since John Fogerty's "Lodi." -- Michael Simmons UNCUT review: "Mined from a rich and inexhaustible seam." -- Nigel Williamson NO DEPRESSION review: "After nearly 50 years as a music fan and 15 as a reviewer I still get excited about discovering new bands and having my breath taken away by songs and tunes that I’ve not heard before. Well; it only took 15 seconds of a divine pedal steel intro followed by an attention-grabbing gruff male voice to capture my attention and I went on to spend an enjoyable lunch hour listening to MYSTERY DRUG from start to finish. Since then I’ve played it as background music while reading the Sunday papers; at full volume as I drove a car on the motorway and also on headphones so I could pick up the nuances of the intricate lyrics. There is something here for everyone as I See Hawks in L.A. tick all of the boxes. A couple of yeas ago I couldn’t put a disc into the player without a banjo booming out of the speakers and this year it’s pedal-steel guitars and just as I was getting a bit tired of constantly hearing this beautiful instrument I See Hawks in L.A have rekindled my love by using it sparingly but effectively, throughout MYSTERY DRUG and it weaves throughout We Could All Be In Laughlin Tonight like a crying heart that that is wailing at the moon. The song itself is wonderful and will strike a chord with any and every musician that is struggling to make a living by playing their own songs in front of ever dwindling uninterested crowds across the world instead of (in this case) playing in a Skynard tribute band for ‘a hundred a man/plus rooms at the Harrah’s/and a one night stand.’ But, like thousands of others they continue ploughing a lonely furrow for a handful of people who appreciate their ‘art’. Personally; I salute them. The album has highs and lows of tempo and I can just as easily imagine the band playing a bar in the seedy side of town and equally, playing the same songs in an Arena in front of 10,000 adoring acolytes. What I See Hawks in L.A. give us is a well structured, and often beautiful take on the classic Alt-Country template that will live on long into the future." -- Alan Harrison Welcome to I See Hawks In L.A.'s new and seventh CD, Mystery Drug, with stellar guest contributions from California’s finest roots country musicians, breathes with a new life that will both refresh and challenge long time fans. Hawks listeners will be struck by the chances taken in this latest phase of the Hawks journey—mixing serious country cred (members have played with Dwight Yoakam, Emmylou Harris, John Denver, Hazel and Alice, and in every honky-tonk from Mississippi to Malibu) with wild lyricism and surreal story telling. Mystery Drug burrows deeper down the white rabbit hole. Layered with the electric swagger and sweetness of 1950's rock n roll, songs like If You Remind Me, Yesterday's Coffee, and even public service message Stop Driving Like an Asshole carry the innocent melodies of a different time. Indeed, the whole of Mystery Drug carries a lightness in sharp relief to the dark contemplations of last year's all acoustic New Kind of Lonely. Are the Hawks more optimistic these days? Maybe, or maybe they've let go of all the false expectations of genre, or for that matter, career. There's a freedom here. A weightlessness. Floating on soft beds of reverb and pedal steel, a gentle yet rowdy warmth surrounds the entire work, particularly in dreamlike The River Knows, the final song of the record and perhaps its strongest and most hopeful statement. Mystery Drug cuts a wide swath of post-Gram Parsons California country music: a sardonic/tragic cowpunk essay on commerce as love (My Local Merchants); a haunted accordion theme on a desert marriage ritual (One Drop Of Human Blood); and folk rockers on the vanishing of spirits and aquifers of the American west (Sky Island and Oklahoma's Going Dry). Musical guests include pedal steelers Rick Shea (Dave Alvin, Wanda Jackson) and Pete Grant (Grateful Dead, The Dillards, Rodney Crowell). Honky tonk and slide guitar, a Celtic 6/8 on death and ancestry, three memorable love ballads, the signature Hawks harmonies, and lots of cosmic acousticism make Mystery Drug a complex and varied voyage, full of wit and surprises. I See Hawks In L.A. were founded in 1999 by Minnesotan turned Echo Park dweller Rob Waller and Cal natives Paul and Anthony Lacques and have been named “the city’s premier roots band” by the Los Angeles Times and “trance-inducing, the stories transfixing, the vibe completely Californian” by No Depression. Hawks records have always mixed traditional bar room musings with tales rooted in geography: mating dances of whales; the life of Senator Byrd from West Virginia; a Humboldt pot grower’s flight to Tibet; boom and bust in guitarist Lacques’s Mojave desert homeland; wandering hippie caravans; the imminent collapse of suburban Houston.  In 2002 the Hawks were decidedly ahead of the curve in condemning the Bush administration’s drums of war. Despite this out on a limb perch, I See Hawks In L.A. have been embraced by legends of contemporary country, requested as an opener by Lucinda Williams and Chris Hillman (who plays on ‘06’s California Country), hitting the Americana Charts, #2 on XM radio’s alt country, and three #1’s on the Freeform American Roots Chart. They’ve toured the U.S. many times, and just completed a triumphant Europe/UK tour. You might catch the Hawks at outdoor Hempfest and Belladrum Fest Scotland, Joe’s Pub in NYC, Old Town School Of Folk Music in Chicago, House Of Blues and McCabes in L.A., or on the main stage at the Folk Alliance in Memphis. From acoustic folk to raging big stage country rock psychedelia, the Hawks choose it all.