SXSW Records

The Strange Boys

Having recorded but never released nearly four albums, the Strange Boys' debut full-length, And Girls Club, feels more like a greatest-hits collection, a staggering assortment of 7-inch artifacts from a new psychedelic era. Confident and composed, the Boys have grown into and perfected these 16 songs. Standout "This Girl Taught Me a Dance," a gritty, postmillennial sock hop, is captured here with a slightly faster tempo than the original demo version and is all the better for it; singer/guitarist Ryan Sambol – a bleary-eyed street poet with sympathy for the devil in the details – slurs the opening sequence: "This girl taught me a dance called I don't care/Said to me, it's easy I swear/stand alone over there." From the drunkard blues strut of "They're Building the Death Camps" and "To Turn a Tune or Two" and raucous, barnyard brawl "Woe Is You and Me" to the twilight folk of "Death and All the Rest," the Strange Boys hark back to the roots of American music and make it their own, the scorching "Heard You Wanna Beat Me Up" and "Poem Party" selling soul like the Spades in 1965. Here's to Austin's newest hit makers. (Sat., Beauty Bar Backyard, 11pm.)