The New Year Newness Ends (Touch & Go)

The New Year

Newness Ends (Touch & Go)

It's such a treat to hear that sound again, the crushing power of restraint, the celebration of the commonplace that marks the gorgeous music of Bedhead's Matt and Bubba Kadane. The Dallas band's 1998 breakup after their final album Transaction de Novo left a void that could only be replaced by their latest band, the New Year, featuring members of Saturnine, Come, and the Legendary Crystal Chandelier. The new bandmates help further the brothers' suddenly more uptempo vision, but the songs themselves remain tethered to the sound that made Bedhead one of the essential Texas bands of the past 20 years. Bedhead's music was always music to "live" to: music for grilling, for sitting on the porch, for taking in the little things. Newness Ends is an extension of that sound, centered on the delicate intermingling of three guitars and a bass, but with a certain physicality, a driving thump and underlying tension that Bedhead never had. On "The Block That Doesn't Exist" a distorted mass follows Matt Kadane's sour resignation, flowing into the thunderous romp "Carne Levare," which clearly marks the New Year as a new animal, music as suitable for an angry cruise as for a cold drink washing away a bitter breakup. Bedhead's finest moments generally featured grand cathartic climaxes of distortion. Newness Ends offers far more of those moments, like the brilliant title track, when the angry cauldron bubbles to the surface, thrusting this album into the stellar reaches alongside some of Bedhead's finest work.