Offspeed and In There (Trance Syndicate)

The second effort from King Coffey's (currently) solo project bears little resemblance to the first, 1992's Pick Up Heaven, and is likely to baffle those not forewarned. With Offspeed..., Coffey's Trance Syndicate label jumps headlong into trance-inducing music with this collection of ambient "trip-hop." As ever with this kind of music, if you find the genre to be nothing but bored people fooling around with keyboards in the studio, don't even bother to give this a listen. For those fond of ambient/dance music, this is a nice set of more than serviceable background bop, with a few outstanding mood-alterers. Among them are the opener, "Playground Twist," a haunting piece that sounds like the opening scene of an invisible screen epic, and the closer, "Upright and Loaded," which the liner notes acknowledge as a "thinly disguised" Eric Satie composition.

HH ¹/2 -- Ken Lieck

LAURIE FREELOVE

The Invisible Invisible (Nine Line)

This artist abruptly ripped herself from the artistic gravitational pull of her former camp/folk band Two Nice Girls in 1989 and launched herself into a creative stratosphere that few, save the Kate Bushes and Nina Hagens of this world, possess the skill and bravery to explore. Though this five-song effort lacks the powerful completeness of Freelove's 1992's solo debut Smells Like Truth and the compelling sweetness of last year's collaboration with Gemma Cochran, 60 Stanley Road, it does achieve merits of its own accord, albeit with less challenging parameters. "Beast in the Circus" is a by-the-book dance-club cut sprinkled with Freelove atmospherics. "Girlfriend" does the same, but with a sad dirth of sprinkles. It sounds as if she were challenged to a Thomas Dolby soundalike contest. But the other three cuts return to the soul-ripping moodiness that makes Freelove the queen meteorologist of psychic storms. "Damn Fool," a lunatic rave-up of screaming purges and bouncy syncopation may signal a newer, wilder direction on the way. But that direction is not yet solidified.

HH ¹/2 -- Joe Mitchell

THOMAS ANDERSON

Moon Going Down (Unclean)

Like a good PBS documentary, Thomas Anderson compels you to listen without resorting to hyper-animation. Most of the songs here condense a character study into the form of a Polaroid snapshot taken from the highway. Even when Anderson sings in first person, he's careful not to make the songs revolve around him. He delivers the news in a somewhat distant, echoing tone that recalls Paul K. Instead of resorting to me-and-my-guitar coffeehouse arrangements, Anderson backs up his message with combative, Crazy Horse-style weight. Highlights include "Running with Heidi," the classic tale of the prim coed who goes from bowhead to junkie in four years or less, and "House of Love," a metaphorical take on the dreams that fall outside the realm of suburban family life. With the marketplace of ideas growing ever more stagnant, perspectives like Anderson's are a commodity.

HHH -- Greg Beets

PEEK-A-BOO BICYCLE RODEO

(Peek-A-Boo United World Empire)

Just as with the fanzine this label/record sprang from, there's much to simultaneously love and loathe with Bicycle Rodeo. A "concept album" based around bicycles seems an odd gift to the world, but Peek-A-Boo honcho Travis Higdon pulls it off with panache to spare. The record and its package are beautifully designed, down to the milky white vinyl LP and the bike rim label gracing one side. Musically, the record's steeped in the same aesthetic turf the 'zine championed from the green light: a mix of punk, garage, art, and K Records-ish strains, with a heavy dose of the irony-charged humor that either alienated or endeared Peek-A-Boo to its readership. Sure, the smirks and cutie-pie factor do threaten to overwhelm the project (right down to the cover of one of Shonen Knife's weaker tunes, "Cycling Is Fun"), but when the rock & roll is allowed to come stomping in (as with superior submissions from Death Valley, Stretford, Lord High Fixers, Spoon, and the Paranoids' anthem, "Go"), none of that matters. Ultimately, the positives outnumber the negatives, making this a fine, fun record.

HHH -- Tim Stegall

HOTWHEELS JR.

Always leave 'em wanting more. This six-song CD is a nice introduction to HotWheels Jr., more than the tip of the iceberg but less than the total picture. It's enough to tell there's more here than simple punk rock, for example. "Grounded" and "Hominy OK" adhere to the Sonic-Youth-inspired idea of exalting one riff above all else, raising the songs' tension level through crashing cymbals and crescendoing guitar instead of the relentless backbeat of "Shake Well" and "Blue." The band almost goes too far in this Velvet-y narcotic direction with "Sleep" (dangerous title for an instrumental) but rein themselves in with an incessant riff and a two-minute running time. "Deal," the EP's last song, is where it jells. Starting with a pulsing ostinato in the bass and low guitar strings, adding levels of guitar ranging from melodic to straight noise, and climaxing with palpable rhythmic tension in the breakdown sections, "Deal" captures not only their live energy (they can really kick out the jams), but their potential as well.

HHH -- Christopher Gray

THE ADULTS

Action Street (Mekkatone)

Among the large number of people who have recommended the Adults to me over the last couple of years, Spoon's Britt Daniel stands out. His affection for the band is quite logical as his band and theirs work the same street, albeit different sides. Where Spoon plays on the eccentric time changes and dark lyrical side of the Pixies, the Adults take on that band's goofier nature and faster melodies, bathing it in impeccable production by Screaming Lizard -- a duo known for their work with Dinosaur, Jr. and Sonic Youth. Dentist-drill guitars whine and the rhythm section drives through high speed, oddball odes to security, insomnia, and radical heart surgery, all sounding vaguely familiar until key and tempo changes overrun any sense of deja vu. Their recent single ("Powerbag"/"Insomnia" -- both on this album) didn't impress me at first, but now I realize that the Adults are that rare type of band that sounds best when you hear an album's length worth of songs that show off their sense of variety. The derivative nature of their sound may be hard to overcome, but the Adults are definitely worth a listen.

HHH -- Ken Lieck

MINISTRY

Filth Pig (Warner Bros.)

SKREW

Shadow of a Doubt (Metal Blade)

A two-generation presentation of contemporary industrial music, Ministry and Skrew have gone back to the factory and returned driving this year's models. Here's Skrew in the inside track, a sleek, streamlined blast of three-guitar combustion roaring through the laps of "She Said" and "Knotted Twig." Coming up from the rear is Ministry in their Jesus-built-my-funnycar, weaving from lane to lane in a powerful but uneven sonic crush. The crowd is hushed as Ministry puts pedal to the metal, but "Reload" and the title track stall out. Skrew takes the lead with the trance-drone of "Sam I Am," layering sound over sound but exercising restraint, saving their energy. Ministry steer back in the race with a bit of grandstanding on "Lay Lady Lay," and the audience cheers the Dylan cover. Mechanically the stronger band, Ministry revs it up with "Lava" and shoots into the lead with "Dead Guy" but Skrew tails closely with "Dark Ride," and menaces Ministry to the finish line. Suddenly, Ministry explode into the home stretch, as "Brick Windows" reveals them the winner, and Skrew just behind 'em. Photo finish.

HHH -- Margaret Moser

DON WALSER

Texas Top Hand (Watermelon)

For the most part, Don Walser's new album is exactly what you would expect -- those now-legendary pipes belting out classics like Faron Young's "Wind Me Up," a real solid version of Hank Williams' "Weary Blues from Waiting," Merle Travis' "Divorce Me C.O.D.," and the yodeling-showcase title track, which he co-penned with Ray Benson. Walser also throws in a pleasant surprise on "Whose Heart Are You Breaking Now" by adding a big-band horn section, an element that characterized the great Western swing bands of the Thirties and Forties, but is rarely heard today (heck, just hearing any instrumentation is rare on most contemporary country music). So why did it take me several listens to catch on? Well, because it's just a good album -- and that's not enough, when you're working with a great musician. Call me a nitpicker, but I wish Walser would forget about newfangled production techniques and studio musicians (which he also used on his last album, Rolling Stone from Texas) and just line up his regular Pure Texas Band in front of some mikes and let 'em loose, like he did on his early tapes (currently repackaged on Watermelon as The Archive Series), and like he does at every show. Nonetheless, a less-than-perfect Walser is light years ahead of most people at their best.

HHH -- Lee Nichols

LOS PINKYS

Esta Pasion (Rounder)

Bradley Jaye Williams, the Polish kid from Michigan who followed the strains of Mexican polka taken northward by migrant farm laborers, has come a long way. In Austin long enough now to have armed himself with a crack squad that includes the superlative veterano Isidro Samilpa on lead vocals, accordion, and bajo sexto, Augie Arreola on drums, and brothers Chris and Javier Cruz on bass and drums, respectively, Bradley and the current Pinkys lineup come out smoking. With Chris doing double-duty on bajo and Bradley trading guns with Isidro on accordion and bajo intermittently, Los Pinkys' second Rounder effort is the finely tuned extension of their notable debut. Samilpa, in particular, is a crowning gift here. He balances Bradley's effusive enthusiasm with a rock-solid lifetime spent honing his beautiful tenor voice alongside cagey accordion wizardry. Esta Pasion (This Passion) aptly describes the love and feel for the kind of timeless conjunto once found in cantinas along Sixth Street between Congress and I-35 before the upscale trendoid invasion.

HHHH -- Abel Salas

BILLY HARPER

Somalia (Evidence)

It's always a major event for this jazz fan when Texas saxophonist Billy Harper comes out with a new album. Despite an impressive resume that includes stints with Gil Evans, Max Roach, Thad Jones-Mel Lewis, Randy Weston, and two decades as a bandleader himself, the hard-blowing Houston-born, North Texas State-educated tenorman remains criminally under-recorded. In my book, Harper has always been among the preeminent post-Coltrane sax players although, to this day, it's surprising that he's still practically unknown. On this new release, an ode to the troubled East African nation that bears its title, Harper imbues the five original compositions with his customary physicality and spirituality that are direct descendants of the Coltrane legacy. A crisp, razor-sharp sound and impassioned, fiery playing are at the heart of this music, with Harper reeling off one muscular solo after another. Ace trumpeter Eddie Henderson, a former Jazz Messenger with Harper in the mid-Sixties, lends his lyrical and thoughtful style as a foil to the leader's more extroverted explorations. The music remains rhythmically charged throughout by the presence of two high-octane drummers and a pianist, Francesa Tanksley, whose modal excursions owe much to McCoy Tyner. Perhaps this will be the album that affords Billy Harper a modicum of the exposure he so readily deserves.

HHH ¹/2 -- Jay Trachtenberg

GATEMOUTH BROWN

Long Way Home (Gitanes/Verve)

With guest players that should make this record more remarkable than it is -- Ry Cooder, Maria Muldaur, Leon Russell, Bobby Charles, Eric Clapton -- Grammy-winning East Texas roots-blues fiddler/guitarist Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown makes a bid for any of the rapidly vacating blues crowns with Long Way Home. Instead, it's an uneven offering of various blues stylings beginning with the Clapton/Russell rocker "Blues Power," and running through a solo instrumental "Deep Deep Water," the second-line jump sound of "Blues Walk" (featuring Grady Gaines on sax), a little guitar-grandstanding on "Underhand Boogie," a stray, soul-injected Dylan cover, "Don't Think Twice," and yet another version of "Tobacco Road." If Gatemouth Brown set out to display his proficiency in blues, he succeeded, but sacrificed his unique gift of melding rural blues and the curious native blend of Texas and Louisiana music. I liked Gatemouth best sawing away at the fiddle on songs like "Dockside Boogie," anyway. Solid but undistinguished blues.

HH ¹/2 -- Margaret Moser

W.C. CLARK

Texas Soul (Blacktop)

As clichéd a title as Texas Soul is, there's nothing pedestrian about its contents. A stalwart of Austin blues since the late Sixties, W.C. Clark's career has taken him from playing behind Joe Tex to virtually owning the "Best Soul Band" category in the Austin Music Poll, and Texas Soul is testament to that journey. Clark's deft guitar and silky vocals gives an Al Green-ish sound to "I Only Have Love For You," a Bobby Blue Bland-like big-blues-with-horns sound on "Just the One I've Been Looking For," and a smooth pace to the Texas shuffle of "Rough Edges." A complement of Austin's best blues players step up to the plate when W.C. pitches his sweet soul music -- Tommy Shannon, Chris Layton, Riley Osbourn, Derek O'Brien, and Larry Fulcher, to name a few -- and the lineup also boasts the fine tuning of producers Mark Kazanoff and Hammond Scott. Set the carousel on "repeat" and turn the lights down low.

HHH -- Margaret Moser

OMAR AND THE HOWLERS

World Wide Open (Watermelon)

Omar & the Howlers aren't exactly planting in virgin earth, but it's plenty fallow, so why shouldn't they? Their last release, Muddy Springs Road, was a trip down into low-down Delta country, gritty and muddy as Ol' Man River himself. This time they've come back to Texas and chased their blues with a stiff shot of rock that comes close a number of time, but to the band's credit, never becomes a poor man's T-Birds. The blues base and roadhouse swing are there all right, but when Omar lays it on the line, pretty much all he wants to do is wail. And he pretty much does just that, too, with a generous assist from co-producers Kevin Wommack and James Tuttle, who make the band sound catchy without watering them down. The proper word for this record is solid. Good beer-drinkin' Texas rock & roll. No more, no less.

HHH -- Christopher Gray

21ST CENTURY BLUES

Baggage and Blues

There are few bands anywhere that mix more hybrid sounds than 21CB. There are enough layers, textures, and colors on this CD to throw Van Gogh into epileptic seizures. Inventory time: blues, rock, psychedelia, jazz, soul, torch, and even hints of hillbilly country check into the band's hostel of style. Though all those nifty pastels float the mind like a cloud, taking the receptive listener to distant galaxies even too far out for Sun Ra to imbibe, the primary color here is still R-O-C-K. 21CB drive the beat like long-haul truckers, gently shifting gears from cruising verses to overdrive choruses. "If I Were a Farmer" is a feat of auditory ambulation. Even the least petrogenetic numbers, like the jazzy "Ephasia" and the greasy blues grind of "Forgiveness and Lust," retain a hard, hot, heavy and, most importantly, moving beat, albeit a few steps back in the mix. This is a band I thought would have trouble translating the spirit of their sparkling live shows onto the recorded disk. I was wrong.

HHH -- Joe Mitchell

LORD HIGH FIXERS

When The Revolution Comes (Au-Go-Go)

Something snapped inside Tim Kerr's noggin once he came out the other side of Bad Mutha Goose. Every blues-and-punk-drenched band his guitarwork's graced since (The Monkeywrench, Jack O'Fire, Lord High Fixers) has been progressively noisier and more fucked-up than the last, to the point where his next band will surely be called the Coho Lip Cave Teens -- specialists in Muddy Waters and Einstürzende Neubauten covers played on two bricks smashing together. This reunion with Poison 13 singer Mike Carroll has come damned close to just such a scenario, with whole shows seeing Kerr and moonlighting Sugar Shack guitarist Andy Wright forgetting how to do everything but wave their six-strings in front of their amps in emulation of the Pagan Feedback Dance, while Drum Major Stephanie and Bass Sgt. Robbie struggle to hold down some sort of groove. Somewhere in there, the old Jack O'Fire "revolutionary" rhetoric's still being hollered, but there's too much of a din for it to be heard. Then again, what's a more potent weapon in the youth revolts: Guitars or ideology?

HHH ¹/2 -- Tim Stegall

THE TEXAS PHILISTINES

Striking Matches at the Gasoline Ballet

The Texas Philistines specialize in combining the seemingly incongruent. In theory, Sixth Street blues and Captain Beefheart blues should work against each other violently, yet the Philistines espouse the stupid and sublime in the same breath. This unlikely promise rings through as warbling guitars engage in a distant, twangy duel only to take some wildly inappropriate turn toward stock takes on classic rock, cowpunk, or bad funk. Then there's the perverse Weird Al lyrical wit unleashed on the country hit parade to produce lyrics like, "DL's got a fetish called flamingo/It's a cotton candy mojo/Detroit dreaming about dyin' dodos/Singing in her head." I like this music because its odd qualities and strange rules of engagement seem unforced. The result, an album that will frustrate hardline alternites as well as the golf cap Nazis just looking for tunage to swill Coors Light by.

HHH -- Greg Beets

TINY TIM WITH BRAVE COMBO

Girl (Rounder)

If last year's live album with the New Duncan Imperials solidified the notion that Tiny Tim is nothing more than another crazy man with musician friends (a la Wild Man Fischer or Wesley Willis), then Girl should melt away some of those fears. The seriously polka-happy Combo from Denton have gone out of their way (over eight years!) to create a set of songs that both satisfies the novelty crowd and revels in T. Tim's deep love for the music of this century's early years. Alongside the silliness and trilliness of "Stairway To Heaven" and "Hey Jude" (both of which are good for a laugh) are way-oldies like "Stardust" and "Bye Bye Blackbird" that show Mr. Tim as an eccentric but energetic vocalist who's had the luck to stumble onto one of the nation's finest polka/world dance bands to back him up. Also more present than on the live album is Tim's trademark falsetto, which is becoming a wild card as he ages, but nevertheless shows up to good effect here on "Over the Rainbow" and others, along with the Vegassy drawl he relies on when the old cords won't warble right.

HHH -- Ken Lieck

MINERAL

The Power of Falling (Crank!)

Amid the sneers and gobs of the punk pigeonhole, it's nice to hear the occasional band that understands how elements like intimacy, melody, and melancholia might play into their music without subverting it. Mineral pairs off guitars in a manner that is one part Sonic Youth and one part cranked-up Galaxie 500 or Bedhead. The songs waltz around you in a theatrical build-up before culminating in a sort of furious warm lull that is better felt than listened to. The individual songs bear no major distinction between one another, and the vocals are too buried in the mix to discern anything significant, but those big, glorious guitars go a good ways toward inviting your submission.

HH ¹/2 -- Greg Beets

RAINRAVENS

(DejaDisc)

Andy Van Dyke has decided to rest his legs after trying a few years worth of rock-star, legs-akimbo posing, and the results reflect well on his decision to relax. While the Rainravens is more of a group effort (with David Ducharme, Herb Belofsky, and David Everttson) than his previous endeavors, Van Dyke is still at the fore here, and the band's lighter, folkier sound suits his songwriting well. While folk may be too soft a word to use in describing this quietly rocking album, the mood throughout is largely dark and reflective, keying on lyrics like "Isolation warm as heroin/Somebody's dying on both ends of the gun." Occasionally things speed up to a faster gait, but rather than reaching for a Springsteen radiance, the Rainravens seem unashamedly satisfied with a Greg Kihn glow. And like expecting Springsteen and getting Kihn, there's something not quite great about this album. But like digging a Kihn album out of the back of your record collection, there's a lot of good stuff here you'll be glad you checked out.

HHH -- Ken Lieck

VELVET HAMMER

Live

Maybe it's Velvet Hammer's penchant for clunky keyboard whirls or their Jethro Tull-ish flute solos that makes Live such a throwback to Vixen and 1986. Or maybe it's just the use of that Loverboy/Night Ranger school of progressive calm-before-the-storm songwriting that makes this all feel so unremarkable. And how is it that all four Hammers sing lead, and yet not one distinguishes themselves with any sort of distinctive vocal tricks? To top things off, even on the best of the worst -- "First Stone," "Kansas," and "Visions" -- the group, sans groove, opts for the long way around each hook, falling into the trap of long intros and overblown choruses. Perhaps it's just that I didn't like Heart the first time 'round.

H ¹/2 -- Andy Langer

ROBERT EARL KEEN

No. 2 Live Dinner (Sugar Hill)

Beginning to see a pattern here. Joe Ely, Townes Van Zandt, Billy Joe Shaver. Texas songwriters whose live stuff kills... This is another live album that finds another Texas boy plying his craft in front of an audience of die-hard fans; in Keen's case they sound like a Backyard full of beer-drinking hellraisers and raisettes. And ...Diner, Keen's second live recording, feels like one of those Backyard dates too, having been recorded on one evening and collecting most of the songwriter's greatest hits (and one of Terry Allen's), as well as one hell of a band -- including local guitar all-stars Rich Brotherton and Lloyd Maines (the latter also produced the album). Best of all, it captures that special, live-gig rhythm, a flow that hits full current during the wonderfully indigenous "When the Bluebonnets Bloom," and "The Road Goes on Forever" (with an intro that's dying to be a song of its own), finishing with the encore, "Dreadful Selfish Crime." The three-song, UT Union Ballroom tack-on at the end would go unnoticed if missing, but let's not quibble. Just get Lucinda Williams and Lyle Lovett to cut one of these.

HHH ¹/2 -- Raoul Hernandez

RONNIE DAWSON

Rockinitis (Crystal Clear/No Hit)

The next time some clueless soul asks you what Texas sounds like, leave your Bob Wills and T-Bone Walker records in their rightful shrines, kick off your shoes, and put on some Ronnie Dawson. Dawson distills rockabilly to its core whiskies of country and the blues, making everything else trashcan punch by comparison. Originally released as an import in 1989, Rockinitis is a thorough massage from knowing hands, as pulse-quickening as it is relaxing. The razor-sharp leads and single-note fills tickle the ears and ricochet around the cranium like a magic bullet; the fat rhythm guitar chords loosen the muscles around the upper back and spinal cord (location of the toe-tapping nerve center). Meanwhile, while the criminally precise bass and drums work the lumbar vertebrae and gluteus maximus, causing highly infectious bouts of untreatable shaking. Indeed, Rockinitis is a particularly acute strain of Texas fever, one that makes Ebola look like a head cold. Take two CDs (this and Monkey Beat!) and call me in the morning -- but not too early.

HHH ¹/2 -- Christopher Gray

ROOT 1

Nomad's Land (Road Communications)

Ask Root 1 leader Jerry Stevens what he's trying to convey with the title of his band's new album and he's apt to tell you about the nomadic nature of humankind and how cultures are constantly changing as they interact with one another -- "we're all nomads to some degree." As reggae has been embraced universally, it too has absorbed influences far beyond its Jamaican roots. On this, their second self-produced project, Austin's Root 1 adds to the reggae recipe with the fruits harvested from a collaborative effort of this musically diverse contingent. It all comes together most strikingly on "Soul Raggamuffin," a melange of hip-hop beats, Jamaican DJ toasting, Middle Eastern chanting, and Celtic fiddling that creates a hypnotic trance. Not all the tracks are this ambitious, but most manage to find a comfortable riddem sooner or later and ride it on home. This time out, the band has opted for a sound with more modern electro-riddems, one that is less rootsy and not as hard as on their previous release, Roots Trade. Early returns show this new release getting good airplay on reggae radio programs all across the country, so Austin can be proud of these reggae nomads as they carry the spirit of this music far beyond the home front.

HHH ¹/2 -- Jay Trachtenberg