The Austin Chronicle

https://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2016-06-10/a-sinclair-get-out-of-the-city/

Texas Platters

Reviewed by Abby Johnston, June 10, 2016, Music

In local outfits Frank Smith and Grape St., Boston-to-Austin transplant Aaron Sinclair has mastered a fusion of indie jams and roots music. For the first LP under his own abbreviated moniker, which he co-produced with local Midas touch Danny Reisch, the singer-songwriter-rocker lets two of those elements bloom, cutting loose with full-throated bangers, then, for brief but powerful moments, pivoting seamlessly into a cowboy dirge. Get Out of the City spends the bulk of its 12 tracks exercising the former, "Liars in the State of New York" nodding to the punk-pop of the early Aughts, a snotty blowout set to a power chord frenzy and hair-tossing guitar refrain only softened by a subtle layer of "oohs" in the chorus. "You Gotta Heart" begins with a breakneck drum line and bubbling bass, ebbing into a sing-along chorus that finally collapses into a guitar-nerd solo. "I'm on an Ocean" puts the brakes on the tempo, letting Sinclair's tenor take it to soaring heights as the song winds through guitar crashes. The title track blooms into atmospheric guitar calls for wider skies than skylines offer. The band lightens up the Black Keys-like "It's on Time," which recalls the tamped-down rock the frontman's plied in Austin dives for nearly a decade. Sinclair offers a neat bookend to this fusion on "Magic in Chapel Hill," whose full-tilt alter ego "Liars in the State of New York" becomes dusty country-folk, its loping speed reduced to a dirge of eerie electric organ. Get Out of the City breaks orbit with not a hair out of place.

****

Copyright © 2024 Austin Chronicle Corporation. All rights reserved.