Austin Sound

The Rocketboys have come a long way since their humble beginnings in Abilene playing small venues to crowds of college kids. They now have a pretty good album, 20,000 Ghosts, that has production credits to a name-drop-worthy role call. Produced by Louie Lino, who has worked with east coast acts such as Nada Surf and Matt Pond, and mastered by indie-noodler Alan Douches, Ghosts is cut from a very decadent indie-rock cloth. The quintet can be seen on the cover distantly perched on a rock amidst fog and trees, in a sort of minimal and drab mystical setting, and it calls to mind the very present ethereal space supplied in the layers of 20,000 Ghosts — an album that sounds full but also finds a way to breath in between passages of ambient indie rock and piano-laced ballads.

The Rocketboys used to be called Homer Hickam and the Rocketboys back when they were an upstart band out of Abilene, but when they officially moved down here to Austin, they apparently left poor Homer back on the dusty west Texas streets. Fair enough, he was totally holding them back. The soaring indie rock quintet, and original ACL Sound and the Jury winners back in 2007, has a new album coming out on September 29 called 20,000 Ghosts, which is a helluva lotta haunts (Space Ghosts?!), but thank god they call it October Sky or something. They will have an official release show at Stubb’s on the 24th. Oddly enough, Stubb’s is one of four release shows their doing, the others including Abilene (natch!), Dallas (fair enough) and Tyler? Guess you really can’t pick where your fans are. “We are a Lighthouse” is the second single they’ve offered up for download from the album (check out “Like Ice in Water” here), and we have to admit that these guys have certainly crafted an intricately epic sound. Check out the tune below.