Austin Sound

Hard rock duos have always had it rough – filling up a room with sound can be damn difficult with only two men. Nonetheless, Austin angerfiends Damage Pants manage to do more than fill a garage with their rough-at-the-edges thrash rock. Combining post-hardcore vocals with more upbeat garage rock rhythms, this group’s self-titled vinyl debut release is abrasive enough to wear down senses and styluses alike.

There has always been something exciting and dangerous about the bull-in-the-glass-house style of spazz rock espoused by groups like Austin’s White Denim. While there is something to be said for order and structure, journeying to new rhythmic grounds is far more fun, especially in a live setting. The trick is to remember the way back home, and with the local trio’s new full-length and first album to receive a proper US release, Fits, it becomes patently obvious that the group didn’t bring a compass.

Austin’s Context Clues seems to have honed their skills at describing themselves; their own website bio states only, “Hello, we’re a pop band from Austin.” While intentionally ambiguous, anyone who picks up a copy of their debut release, Improve Your Diction, will quickly see that the band’s description is apt. Romping through multiple genres and decades of music in a surprisingly short time, the album is 11 tracks of solid music united by little more than their constant optimism and pop sensibility. One may actually be forced to improve his diction merely to come up with enough words to describe the changing sounds of each song.

Minimalism is certainly an Austin standard, whether it be the simple song structures of indie bands or the one-key drone of post-rock. Austin’s Jude/Ross embrace the idea, but go minimal on the orchestration rather than on refinement or talent. With their eponymous full length, the band jogs through 10 pop tunes at record pace, dipping their toes into puddles of rock and folk/country along the way. While never breaking out of its reticent shell into anything starkly memorable, these tracks are solid enough to lend an innocuous soundtrack to a gentle summer night near the edge of the city limits.

Anyone who has attended their high school prom knows that a certain amount of that special night’s charm comes only after looking back through a rather forgiving nostalgic lens. One can be sure that a certain circle of Hell is set aside for playing live footage of prom on a loop; we may remember it as perfect, but the real thing was far from. Dressed for Success, the latest EP release from Austin punk quintet Prom Nite, is no exception. While they do a good job of bringing back a classic snotty punk sound with a twist, the album is hampered by poor stylistic choices and a feeling of monotony that overshadows the group’s prouder moments.

Austin isn’t known for its discrete seasons; sure, at some point in April the dry crackle of leaves is replaced by the blast of an angry, long-hungover sun, but patterns change so quickly day-to-day that it often seems as if winter and summer co-occur. Until the Autumn, the fourth full-length album by Austin’s The Story Of, exists in this gap between Summer and death, where nostalgia and hope seem at once lost and omnipresent. Cathartic and powerful, this album has the capacity to wear the listener out almost as fast as it lifts him up.

Opener “Berkeley” immediately bursts into a thick fog of harmonized voices with vocoded accompaniments. One may immediately notice the increase in (post-)pop sensibility on this album, but as vocalist Christman Hersha utters “don’t back off/ we got ‘em all/just where we want”; the change in style is deliberate, and one can detect this intent behind every note, even if their reasoning for doing so isn’t solidified until later in the album.

This year’s second annual Psych Fest put on by the Black Angels expanded to three full days, which needless to say is more droning and distortion than just about anyone can take. We pushed ourselves to limit and took in as much as we could at the not-really-opened for business Radio Room. Friday’s opening night offered an appropriate dose, with Low Heaven delivering a moody and melodic tone that was just as likely to crash into a wall of sound. It bookended well with the Black Angels closing set, which was one of the best and most energetic sets they’ve served up, with new material that promises to jump beyond Directions to See a Ghost. Most interesting for Friday night’s lineup was the Golden Dawn performing Power Plant in its entirety. While George Kinney and company couldn’t be accused of delivering the best performance of the weekend, they did remind that psychedelia is supposed to be fun, and Kinney’s dancing and crooning was a blast. For the rest of the weekend, we sent Evan St. John into the madness to cover the afternoons, and pics from the evening shows.

CDs are a fickle mistress; in this age of digital everything, they can be a hallowed sanctum unreachable by hard-drive errors, or they can be those scratch magnets that disappear only to be found years later in the bowels of one’s dresser or car. With Benko’s debut album, Welcome to the Follow Through, this fear of loss has been assuaged. I always know where my copy is: in my stereo.

Following the Austin penchant for defying typical instrumentation, Benko also has a knack for actually sounding decent while doing it. The first time vibraphone player Sarah Norris taps a key on opener “Isle of Man,” the concept of the vibraphone lead-line just makes sense. Something about the sustain of each note lends a hopeful air to even this somewhat sad tale, in which bassist/vocalist Eric Grostic feebly croons “they’ll leave you all alone/ they don’t know what they got ‘til you’re gone.” Grostic has a water-thin voice that retains a nerdy, angsty charm without sounding contrived, and drummer Aaron Dugan keeps his drums reined in on a short but appropriate leash.

For a band that has already conquered the Austin music scene like a frenzied Cortés-with-a-smile, it may seem superfluous to name an album “Exposion”. In no short supply of prior popularity, White Denim is guaranteed to capture at least an ear or two with its first full-length album. Indeed, it’s amazing this group got so far without having a full-length up to this point, but their success rests on one key fact: by melody if possible, by force if necessary, White Denim compels the listener to have fun.

In their latest release, currently available only in digital format, Denim has crafted 11 meandering, spastic glimpses into an alternate universe where, villain or hero, everyone taps a toe and snaps a finger in time.

For many, the genre of Modern Folk appears derivative, used up, and withered; a mockery of some bygone era long since grown impure. Austin’s Brothers and Sisters, with their newest release, Fortunately, contravene this concept - creating, in effect, Austin’s first Postmodern Folk album. Its music is fresh and honest, not because it mimics that golden era of mid-20th-century folk, but because its chords and sentiments seem to flow directly from the past and combine effortlessly with the band’s modern storytelling sensibilities. In these fourteen songs, the band is at once ironic and non-patronizing, tearing just at the edge of novel and nostalgic.

Opening with “Mason City,” Lily and Will Courtney immediately introduce classic folk themes of travel and loss, as the two harmonize “I’d give anything just to get back home/ … I’m a runaway.” For these two, the contradiction between the desire to flee and the need to feel at home has never been so strong.