Austin Sound

The past year on the Austin music scene has been a rather up-and-down affair. We’ve had some fantastic developments, like the internet radio tastemakers Woxy moving to town and making themselves right at home, and we’ve had a number of low points, like the continued fight over sound ordinances and city hall stifling plans for a dedicated music department. We also lost long time Austin icons like Stephen Bruton, Tina Marsh, and Rusty Wier, and even Sky “Sunlight” Saxon moved to Austin only to quickly move on to yet another plane of existence. And already at the start of the new decade, our music scene is caught between promise and controversy. The former came in the form of last month’s release of Matador Records’ Austin comp, Casual Victim Pile, curated by Gerard Cosloy and hopefully putting a number of new bands on the map, and the latter emerging with the University of Texas’ decision to try to shut down the seminal Cactus Cafe.

Bear Claw – Bear Claw (Monofonus)

Part of a series of one-sided 10” vinyl releases that the always engaging Monofonus Press is releasing, Bear Claw’s official debut offering (earlier released on cassette) is a beautiful and bittersweet pop delight. The trio’s sound sits well in Austin’s indie pop scene, more subdued than many of their contemporaries, but also envelopingly charming without dipping into saccharine treatments. Their minimal approach serves the songs well, Nigel Rainey’s vocals lending a calmly daydreamed disenchantment atop the sparse backbeats and strums and melodica, a bit like a less dramatic young Morrissey. “Needle and Thorn” clips briskly in its lovelorn weariness, with the female harmonies continually adding an effervescent touch. Similarly, “Warm Winter” could easily play alongside locals like the Lovely Sparrows, especially as the chorus swells sadly into “I’ll be a shut-in, I’ll just stay home, Hope you’re here too, Hope I’m not alone.” “Romantic Period” jangles up behind an acoustic bop and sway, while the martial beat of closer “You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby Blue” strikes with a more deliberately bitter heart that even the melodica can’t soothe. An excellent four song set that begs for more.

Here’s something weird: The Happen-Ins aren’t doing anything remotely new or innovative on their self titled debut album, yet somehow they seem like a fun fresh breath of air. Maybe it’s because the album features instructions for “things to consider before, during, and after listening to this record” – and those things, in the end, will apparently and assuredly result in “palpitations, perspirations, and motivations to stomp the floor”. Maybe it’s because The Happen-Ins just sound like they’re having fun playing old school rock and roll. Or maybe it’s because, along with having a sense of humor, swagger, and melody, The Happen-Ins play the music your parents (or, shit, grandparents in some of your cases) might have loved, but they don’t sound worn out like the grooves on a dusty old Creedence record. Their debut affair practically bursts from the speakers, with exuberance that is all too often missing from their peers’ recordings.

For the past few weeks, Western Ghost House has been running the west coast with Crooks, but their tour ends at the Mohawk this Sunday, March 7. Western Ghost House first captured our attention last year with their live show, and now with an EP and couple of good tours under their belt, have congealed into a local band to watch in 2010. While their songs can kick with hard-lined, dark alt. country vibe, their unbridled bursts and Jesse Pantoja breathless, Dan Bejar-esque vocals have taken the band in much a much more convincingly indie direction. The quartet is preparing the release of their debut LP for this summer, and you check out their new road-tested tunes March 7 at the Mohawk for a welcome home show along with Woodsboss and Crooks.

Legs Against Arms’ debut EP gives a glimpse at what we could see later this year with their first full-length release. With a title like Come On Let’s Disappear, you’re going to mine connotative thoughts of early decade alt-rock bands playing radio-friendly tunes and getting placement on crummy WB teen dramas. But Legs Against Arms manages to overstep such dubious prejudices despite the presence of cinematic crescendos and throaty, heart felt vocals — there’s something more bubbling below. It’s somewhere between the glassy, streamlined rock and roll of the EP’s first three tracks and the conclusive two-part epic of Disappear’s’s last two songs, “B.I.O.L.O.G.Y.” and “Paper Ships”.

Even the first second of the Paper Shapes’ debut, Shape Invasion, is a full-force wall of sound. Without warning or introduction guitars and bass sweep in for a non-stop frenzy for the entirety of the short EP, which falls under 15 minutes. Jaw-dropping, swift bass and guitar lines tangle together for an unrelenting solidity. The band’s talent is undeniable, it takes deft fingers to keep pace of the Paper Shapes’ guitar and bass, even if a lack of fresh elements give the EP a déjà vu feel.

On their debut album, The Bronze, Woodgrain does something good, possibly even very good. Exactly how to describe what that thing is, though, is nearly impossible. Lying somewhere between metal (this is a band that was chosen to open for The Sword on a half dozen or so tour dates) and a Brian Eno Moog-gasm, Woodgrain is relatively indescribable (other than maybe “repetitive” or “coma inducing” at times). There are times when “indescribable” means “horrible”, “awful” or “waste of sounds waves” – but not in the case of Woodgrain. The Bronze is a genuinely exciting and interesting album; it’s just hard to say what exactly is going on (perhaps the album art featuring a centaur astronaut carrying roses on the moon in front of a basketball hoop should have been an indicator).

Deadman don’t as much riff off their influences as revel in them, unloading songs saturated in the Seventies folk rock of the Band and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Yet few artists can deliver that sound with as much authenticity and their own songwriting prowess as Steven Collins, who has built Deadman into a formidable outfit over the past couple of years. Though Collins’ songs often wrangle with heavy themes like faith and doubt, loss and redemption, they’re always set within a familiar, easy flowing sound lifts well beyond their subjects. Following up 2008’s excellent Severe Mercy, the band has a new extended single of “Take Your Mat Up and Walk” available to set the stage for the upcoming album by the same name. You can download one of the versions of the single below, and also catch Deadman this Thursday, February 25, as they take a turn at the Sessions showcase at the Hideout Theatre. They also hold down a residency at the Saxon Pub every Tuesday night, so you have plenty of chances to check them out.

In the final addition to the trilogy of albums spanning Palo Santo, Rook and now, The Golden Archipelago, Jonathan Meiburg’s Shearwater continues to refine the delicately explosive sound that placed Rook at the top of many-a Year End List in 2008. Here again, with nature (and human interaction with it) as the muse, Meiburg steps into the life of island nature as it intertwines with memories of the War in the Pacific. Naturally, it’s a great album (though if you didn’t like Rook, this new one certainly won’t change your opinion). But more naturally it seems, in the year to come, The Golden Archipelago will be put under the critical microscope time and again, until you won’t really need to have heard the album to talk about “the album.” But it would be a shame, a damn shame in fact, to miss out on such an emotionally charged album, if you don’t think about it too hard. So, as I hope was the inspiration of the album itself, let’s see if we can observe it in its element, without pinning it down and suffocating it with a boring rubbing-alcohol analysis.

On 2009’s debut, …And Girls Club, the Strange Boys grape-vined through sixteen songs of unabashed, uninhibited, youthful garage rock. Their tunes wavered between alt-country, blues and R&B, and sultry lo-fi noodling — all maintaining the indiscernible trademark of front man Ryan Sambol’s cerebral, tongue-in-cheek whimsy. Critics applauded it and (a few) disliked it — all for the same reasons. The Strange Boys just didn’t seem to be playing by the rules.

For their latest offering, Be Brave acts like more of a mantra than a title track or album name for the Austin foursome. Where …And Girls Club had edge and swagger — perhaps even a decided indifference to perfection and professionalism — Be Brave has a more mellow and tame persona. This departure in sound and album aesthetic will definitely divide the room on whether the sophomore album was a step up or not.