Austin Sound

Sometimes one forgets that in the late 60s and early 70s, there weren’t a bunch of guys sitting around in garages and living rooms saying they wanted to be the next Led Zeppelin or Cream – because there was barely a Led Zeppelin or Cream. For a while there, your local record store probably wasn’t specifically a record store and the local garage bands were probably a bit more like the Beatles and the Stones still. Which all in all means that Prayer for Animals, and their gritty debut Swell, probably wouldn’t have quite existed then… even if it sounds like it definitely could, would, and should. There’s no shame in crafting your music in the image of some of the best; would anyone rather be in a band that merely wanted to be Styx?

We’ve been curious about Haunting Oboe Music’s July EP ever since we heard that they would be teaming up with recently Sound Off featured band Prayer for Animals. We figured it could either be a complimentary melding of like styles, or, given both groups’ penchants for wandering into dark psychedelic tangents, a bloody mess. Luckily, July is clearly the former, the two’s music melding so seamlessly it is difficult to tell them apart.

The July EP marks the halfway point in HOM’s EP a month project, so the split at this point makes perfect sense. The EP features one original from each band, one cover of the other group’s song, and then the final collaboration between the two, “Take the Wheels Off”, which we’ve posted for download below. The song rips along with Modest Mouse punch, but unraveling more subdued textures. Haunting Oboe Music and Prayer for Animals will both be unloading inside Emo’s tomorrow night, August 28, along with Transmography and Prom Nite.

UME - Photo: Anthony Rathbun

A day late but no less jam-packed with events, it’s Weekend Preview.

Two super lineups dominate the weekend beginning with UME, Ringo Deathstarr, Haunting Oboe Music and more at the Monarch Event Center. Then Sunday, KOOP plays host to a fundraiser where you have the chance of winning a scooter, and the guarantee of good music, compliments of The Bellfuries, La Snacks, Peel, and Foot Foot.

Prayer for Animals breeds a kind of shamanic, bluesy trance that falls somewhere between locals like the Strange Boys and Haunting Oboe Music, burdening an unhinged edge in the vocals across melodic guitar jams that paw in any number of directions. Though banging darkly in the psychedelic garage, the quintet is equally likely to unleash boozy acoustic numbers cut with twang and pedal steel, as with the rough mix of “No Bed” that they’ve offered for download below. Expect the group’s proper debut album later this year, and in the meantime you can catch them this Saturday at Trophy’s with Snafu Kittens, Bombs Away, and Base.