Sound Team
Zilker Park, Sept. 23
As music festivals become more instrumental in breaking new acts in the U.S., winning over ambivalent masses in two songs or less is a great gift indeed. Although Sound Team surely benefited from the hometown crowd at their late-afternoon ACL performance, the septet’s full-bodied aural drama demonstrated why Capitol Records signed them. With two guitarists and two keyboardists, Sound Team pads their melodies with rich textures, creating a thoughtfully arranged assault vaguely reminiscent of Sonic Youth crossed with Warm Jets-era Brian Eno. At the same time, they work in late-Cold War dance rhythms that straddle the line between New Wave and disco. Despite being custom-fit for orange terror alerts and marauding cyclones, Sound Team performs at too high a level to be considered a contrivance. Moving between guitar and piano, singer Matt Oliver came off as a prime-time frontman, able to lather up the sizable crowd without overly active courtship. Whereas some studio-savvy bands fail to translate live, Sound Team turned songs like “Don’t Turn Away” and “Movie Monster” into anthemic forces of nature. Given their well-greased performance groove, all Sound Team needs now is a suitable label push and maybe a song in a car commercial.
This article appears in September 30 • 2005.
