Whiskey Shivers, Guns of Navarone, Holiday Style, Slowtrain, Wiretree

Whiskey Shivers (Photo by Shelley Hiam)

Whiskey Shivers, Guns of Navarone, Holiday Style, Slowtrain, Wiretree

As bespectacled local quartet Wiretree warms up, the crowd inside Red River revival Holy Mountain counts rather sparse on this cold Thursday evening. A blink later and the former Beauty Bar, now reconfigured, is packed save for a two-foot space around the stage. KUTX evening host and Good Music Club face Laurie Gallardo introduces the evening, and it's off and running and never short of raucous. Wiretree fires off two new cuts slated for a summer release, keeping with the band's no-frills power pop. Roots-rock collective Slowtrain crams the stage to bursting, swelling rich tones into twanged tracks like "When I Walk Into a Room." Formed from ex-Zykos, the Gloria Record, and Frank Smith members, Holiday Style debuts at Holy Mountain, lax vocals barely audible above the churning upheaval of guitar, but it's easy to pinpoint the intersection of influences, as well as to spot the potential of this fledgling group. Southern rocker Cory Reinisch leads quartet Guns of Navarone through a country-strong rock set with a punked-up spirit, blazing through its 45 minutes with infectious enthusiasm. As indicated by the tittering whispers while they set up and the uproarious applause with the first note, the pièce de résistance rushes the stage: Whiskey Shivers. It doesn't matter if you've seen them once or 100 times. This shit-kicking, bluegrass-loving, barefoot hillbilly troupe never delivers anything short of exhilarating.

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