Credit: Photo by Shelley Hiam

The Strange Boys

Friday, Sept. 26, Zilker Park

Strange Boys vocalist Ryan Sambol looks and sounds like a little boy. The slurred squeak of his voice bleats unique and quite frankly endearing, and its seeming innocence, along with the local quartet’s youthful looks and thin, noisy sound, invites comparison to another young garage rock band, Black Lips. The Strange Boys don’t possess the Lips’ anarchic punk energy, substituting instead an unconcerned ennui that seems rooted in lazy front-porch blues. That impression is encouraged by their excellent covers of Muddy Waters’ “Baby Please Don’t Go” and James Brown mainstay “Think,” the latter of which somehow manages to sound both driven and incredibly relaxed. Their set didn’t have a lot of variety, but it certainly set the right mood for a rock show held incongruously in bright sunlight on a workday.

This article appears in October 3 • 2008.

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