Calliope Musicals
Time Owes You Nothing
Reviewed by Alejandra Ramirez, Fri., April 22, 2016
Calliope Musicals sticks out like a sore thumb on the local scene. Last month's Best New Band at the Austin Music Awards puts on performances wherein frontwoman Carrie Fussell acts as ringmaster amidst the homegrown sextet's circus theatrics of DayGlo costumes and paisley pop garb. Studio debut Time Owes You Nothing follows their self-described "psychedelic party folk" as the arrangement of 13 tracks blend kaleidoscopic flourishes with rootsy sincerity in songs like stoner excursion "Tiny White Moths" and harmonized acoustic jangle "Letters." Ditching throwback prog-rock opuses for succinct songwriting, "Velveteen" nevertheless transforms from plucked vignette to glorious crescendo, and "Swim or Sink" recalls Pink Floyd's celestial "The Great Gig in the Sky." Even though "Happy Sandy Baby" swirls a burst of sinuous guitar, it channels the breezy, pastoral pop of Dusty Springfield. Straying from the hodgepodge honeymoon phase of their Clouds on Fire EP, the album boasts producer Kevin Augunas of Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros, and proves as confident and cohesive as Calliope Musicals is theatrical.
