Austin Sound

Century of Self is a statement on several fronts for Trail of Dead. First off, the band’s sixth album was released on their own label, Richter Scale (with help from Justice Records), and no doubt some of that sense of renewed vitality that spikes Century is due to being free from major Interscope. More importantly, however, is the statement made by the music, which confidently unleashes an epic storm. Even at their wildest and most cathartic moments, the sextet remains firmly in control, intensely layering the fury and interweaving calmer moments that nonetheless pack just as much of an emotional punch.

It’s been four years since the New Year released their last album, The End Is Near, which had seemed to prophetically signal that the Kadane brothers were once more moving on to other projects. But with the north Texas quintet’s sudden return with their eponymous third album, the New Year has not only delivered their best record, but also seemed to have mastered the balance between slow burning, hazy modern malaise and a poignant restlessness that is in continuous search for something bigger, something with meaning. It’s a mellow set, propped up by a backside heavy with piano ballads, even as it courses with an urgency to move and escape. The mood is encapsulated in the mesmerizing build of the opening track, “Folios,” which dances a easy instrumental waltz for nearly 4 minutes before climaxing in the subdued questioning, “I don’t think the good years I’ve got can wait, so what are we staying for?”

It’s a truism of rock albums that the concept record is a tricky undertaking, perhaps even more so in our digital age that is so sadly far removed from album-oriented listening. The problem of the concept album is compounded when the songs attempt to tread double allegorical planes, as The Human Zoo does. Ostensibly, the debut LP from Death is Not a Joyride delivers a commentary on the contemporary paralyzing and trapped human condition through ten songs using circus animals their subject. Thus, the album is not just a PETA plea, but one that attempts to run deeper with correlation to our own human existence. Unfortunately, it rarely comes together on either level very effectively.

The dark gothic impulse of DiNaJ is given full range on the album, and to see them live is always an incredible experience. Production from the Paper Chase’s John Congleton would seem to fit their schizophrenic bursts well, but on record, especially one as heavy-handed as The Human Zoo, the angsty wails overpower a lot of the unique qualities of the band.

To hear the opening of Ghostland Observatory’s third album, and first since launching to national prominence behind one of the best live shows Austin can boast, you’d expect something of epic proportions to follow. “Opening Credits” drones along in anticipation before finally crescendoing like a steaming kettle, a trick that works wonders in building drama to the explosive burst of the band live. Unfortunately, what follows on Robotique Majestic is mostly lukewarm backwash. Robotique feels like Thomas Turner’s album, the technical maestro of the duo, and the album moves with an intense precision and each beat feeling extremely calculated, which often only serves to make it equally lacking of any life or emotion.

Meryll’s sophomore album seeps with a vigorous nostalgia. “I’m in another time and place,” chimes Andrew Hernandez on opener “Brother the Hunter,” and the album certainly feels like Hernandez digging through the memory-laced scrapbooks of his past, a loose haze that wanders precariously between idyllic reflection and the impending realization of loss of innocence. But if it sounds quaint, it’s not. The effectiveness of the songs is bolstered by the swelling guitar sweeps and percussive crescendos that, on songs like “Rusty Fence,” inject a powerful, encompassing energy to the slowly building fuzz that lingers behind all the tracks. Happened plays like a hypnotic dream, where visions recalled and imagined furtively linger and fade behind details universally specific, making it feel as if Hernandez has a tapped a collective unconscious, personal yet evasive.

Band chemistry is a difficult thing to define and even more difficult to foster. Sometimes it comes together naturally, as with Austin’s unlikely quartet of songwriters Band of Heathens. Sometimes it comes together completely improbably – Interpol (for better or worse) comes most readily to mind. And sometimes it simply has to be worked out over time. With string bands, that chemistry is perhaps even more important, dependent as the genre typically is on close harmonies and the tight interplay of instruments, as opposed to the usual rock show which can afford a certain amount of leeway in the sloppiness. The Weary Boys were a band that seemed to have that natural chemistry from the start. Their eponymous debut in 2001, through a large helping of traditionals and covers interspersed with only a few original tunes, presented a band comfortable enough to impressively push limits while still proving an aptitude for the heritage they were brilliantly ransacking. There was a distinctive sound to the group that only grew over time, and as former lead writer Mario Matteoli honed his songwriting, so too did the band brand his songs with an appropriate fire or honky tonk heartache that could rise and fall with an almost effortless aplomb.

Relocating to Austin from Cleveland, the Jungle Rockers are a natural fit for Austin’s vintage appeal, and few bands have matched the Continental Club’s rockabilly ethos so well. And while they have quickly and popularly enmeshed themselves within the local scene, it’s also tempting to see the roots of their Ohio hometown both in their Midwest blue-collar drive and as the city’s home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in their unrepentant melding of rock’s most foundational sounds. The group’s debut, self-titled EP proudly wears its influences on it’s sleeve, and it’s impossible not to talk about the Jungle Rockers without dropping their very conscious debts to Bo Diddley or Chuck Berry licks. But with the energy that the quartet injects back into the sound, their songs are more of a true homage and embracing of that period than a derivative rehashing.

Bill Callahan’s first album sans Smog is a predictably polarizing affair. For an artist who helped defined lo-fi throughout the nineties, and whose 2005 release A River Ain’t Too Much to Love was one of the best folk albums of the year, Whaleheart is jarringly produced by Neil Michael Hagerty. Driven by big beats, jangly electric guitars, and swelling violin courtesy of Elizabeth Warren, the album justifies Callahan’s dropping of his former brand name, and the new direction, however unsettling at first, promises a new path that may open up some of his best work, even if alienating some fans.

On his exquisitely melancholic Love Me Like the Devil EP released last year, Leatherbag’s songs hung heavy in the strains of a cello and slide guitar. There was a mournful air attached to the dreams of escape in songs like “Tennessee” and “New York,” a sadness and desperation that underpinned, and undermined, the illusion of the promise in the open road. On his much-anticipated full-length debut, Nowhere Left to Run, that realization seems fulfilled as Leatherbag sings from the other side of disillusion. Nowhere pines through lost loves, haunted memories and roads taken to their disappointing dead ends, yet, somewhat paradoxically, floats more lightly than his previous efforts.