Pushmonkey, Damesviolet

Pushmonkey

Damesviolet

Imagine, just for a second, that a wealthy KLBJ listener decides he wants to donate $10,000 toward video production for two of the most promising homegrown groups in current rotation, Pushmonkey and Damesviolet. What might they look like? Judging by the bands' recently released albums, Damesviolet would almost certainly head off for a location shoot in the highlands, with swooping helicopter shots of rugged cliffs, stiff breezes, and hands raised exultantly skyward. Pushmonkey, on the other hand, would most likely round up the Sugar's girls and a couple tons of Central Texas sod for an all-day mud-wrestling orgy. At the very least, neither band appears to be suffering any kind of identity crisis. Though it's the under-21 quartet's first album, Damesviolet is stocked with self-assured, slightly melancholy, would-be anthems that leave the impression that singer Beaux Loy is itching to whip his shirt off and tell the lighter-waving crowd he's come to take them higher. True, this sort of brow-furrowing rock is particularly cliché-prone -- does anyone need another song called "I've Got You Where I Want You"? -- but when it works ("Stay," "What I Want"), the potency is undeniable. Pushmonkey's second full-length, meanwhile, continues splicing good ol' Southern-boy party rock into Reznor-worshipping industrial heaviness, with mixed results. It's hard to deny the primal appeal of volatile thrashers like "Pissant" and "Masterbraker" (heh heh), but "Core" and "Number One" are locked in the same downward spiral that didn't exactly work long-term wonders for Filter, Stabbing Westward, or Sister Machine Gun. It's funny to hear these Bitché boys go all Jimmy Eat World for "Mine to Waste," which could be the love theme to some future American Pie installment. While not without merit, ultimately both albums are just a bit too by-the-numbers; hopefully, one day these bands will realize other things out there can be just as satisfying as heavy rotation.

(Both)