Right as rain (pun intended), Austin Blues Festival and Austin Psych Fest braved spring showers and humidity when they returned to the Moody Amphitheater and Far Out Lounge, respectively, last weekend. The Chronicle music team split up to catch shredders of the soulful and psychedelic varieties at both events; read our reviews here, and find more musings – plus full Austin Blues Festival and Austin Psych Fest photo galleries – online. See what our writers had to about the Austin Blues Festival.
Blackwater Holylight’s String-Heavy Sludge Metal
Austin may have brought the humidity, but Portland-based rockers Blackwater Holylight definitely brought the heat. The ensemble’s drawn-out sludge essence stitched doom metal and heavy psychedelia, bringing a grandiose and almost cinematic atmosphere to their set. After opening with the breakneck “Who the Hell,” the foursome wove between tracks in their latest EP, If You Only Knew. “Wandering Lost” brought on an intense tug-of-war between ear-splitting instrumental breaks and vocalist-guitarist Sunny Faris’ siren croons, while “Fate Is Forward” leaned into thundering, reverb-drenched shoegaze. While barely opening her eyes, bowmaster Camille Getz anchored the band’s crushing cacophony with her velvet strings, bringing an ethereal, orchestra-forward wash over their brooding resonance. Any audience attention doubtfully lost was quickly restored as a synthy violin vignette tiptoed into the opening notes of Radiohead’s “All I Need,” where Faris’ lush trills complemented the cover’s minimal stylings and droning crescendo. In just under 35 minutes, the metalheads brought ear-splitting energy to the festival’s sticky, smoke-filled air, revving up showgoers for the rest of the evening. – Miranda Garza
Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Anti-War Orchestra
Montreal-based post-rock pillar Godspeed You! Black Emperor made it to Austin Psych Fest to perform a grand, hazy symphony. The crowd silenced when double bass player Thierry Amar and violinist Sophie Trudeau plucked the first notes of “Hope Drone,” the improvisation the band has opened with since they reunited in 2010. It’s a meditative piece, segueing the audience into their harmoniously cataclysmic world – and also an expression of optimism, with the film behind them projecting the word “Hope.” Yet, the word glitches on screen, and the guitar gloomily faded into “SUN IS A HOLE SUN IS VAPORS,” the opener on NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD, which the band performed mostly in whole on Friday night. The album, which explicitly references the Palestinian death toll (at the time of its release) in the title, sounds like the musical score of our societal doom. Guitars and drums are either droning under the weeping violin or blaring into the sky – which a film projection of wildfires accompanied about 40 minutes into their set, further exemplifying upheaval. But the band knows when to decrescendo. “GREY RUBBLE – GREEN SHOOTS” closed their set, which is cathartically hopeful, echoing their desires for peace and rebuilding. – Mattea Gallaway
Explosions in the Sky’s Incendiary Day 1 Finale
Fresh off of their 2025 tour, instrumental virtuosos and hometown heroes Explosions in the Sky set fire to Psych Fest’s first night. Since their 1999 inception, the post-rock experimentalists have eight studio albums and six soundtracks under their belts, and have supported acts like industrial hitmakers Nine Inch Nails. Though 10 minutes late, all was forgiven almost immediately once the headliners graced the stage. “You know who we are, we know who you are,” echoed guitarist Munaf Rayani during his quick introduction. “We belong to you,” he added, before they broke out into opener “Greet Death.” Instrumentalist Jay Demko joined the band’s core four lineup with an extra set of strings, adding even more dimension to their seemingly boundless sound. Ten tension-building and crescendo-conquering epics spanned across the group’s 80-minute set, including fan favorites “Six Days at the Bottom of the Ocean” and “Magic Hours.” Each sonic peak crashed like waves on a reverb-sanded shore, with explosive drums and pulsing basslines you felt in your teeth. “The Only Moment We Were Alone” brought a raw finale to Friday night with poignant, nostalgia-filled notes that surged into a monumental climax. No lyrics necessary. – Miranda Garza
Dummy Is Deceptively Dancey
Dummy’s music encapsulates the feeling of a summer in your 20s; it’s refreshing and mesmerizing, but you never know where you’ll end up. On Saturday evening, Dummy took to the stage with this exact unpredictability in the best way possible, filling the intimate Janis Stage with a vast world of curious sounds and rhythms. The band released their debut EP in 2020, and their sound has been largely indie rock since, characterized by Emma Maatman and Nathan O’Dell’s bright vocals and catchy, carefree guitar riffs. But they’re all multi-instrumentalists, incorporating organs and synths into their catalog, which brought an entrancingly psychedelic soundscape to Austin Psych Fest. The danceable “Nine Clean Nails,” followed by some ambience and then the infectiously bouncy “Blue Dada,” felt like floating in a surreal dreamscape. The band has long joked, “Making music shouldn’t be fun,” acknowledging all of their hard work, but, of course, so much of their appeal is that they seem like they’re having pure fun – and going where the music takes them. – Mattea Gallaway
STRFKR’s Intergalactic Indie Pop Comes Down to Earth
STRFKR’s late afternoon set was a 2010s time capsule. Dancers in astronaut suits busted moves straight out of Just Dance, flanking guitarist and lead vocalist Joshua Hodges, who dressed for the occasion in a pink wig and oversized sunglasses. Much like their 2024 album, Parallel Realms, STRFKR’s performance didn’t stray far from the glitter-infused indie pop sound that brought them success in the early 2010s. The set began with relatively few frills: the signature fairy-dust keys of “Kahlil Gibran” were pushed into the background, and the sleigh bell jaunt of “Rawnald Gregory Erickson the Second” dampened, by Arian Jalali and Hodges’ distortion-affected guitars. In true 2010 fashion, confetti cannons accompanied the start of “Kahlil Gibran,” the first major hit of the performance, just as they had accompanied the start of the set. In time, the band leaned into their electronic elements with documentary-excerpt samples from “Bury Us Alive,” intergalactic synths in “Open Your Eyes,” and a cover of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Having fun was the question in the air as the band trotted out nostalgic favorites and standouts from later releases, like “Together Forever.” Amid the colorful costumes, perfunctory playing, and a crystalline performance, both the band and crowd seemed uncertain how to enjoy themselves. STRFKR ended the set early, with confetti still in the tank. It blew through the air in a diminished arc as the band receded from the stage. – Caroline Drew
Sasami Summons the Freaks
“I THINK I FUCKING LOVE AUSTIN,” Sasami screamed, inviting the audience into her high-octane sonic world on Saturday night. Part pop star, part rock star, and part classically trained French horn player, the L.A.-based musician is quite the wild card. Sometimes, she’s traversing the stage like a graceful ballet dancer, and other times she’s cranking out a noisy guitar riff to the thumping beat of the drums. Before breaking into one such shred, she asked, “Are there any freaks in the house?” and a mosh pit followed. The audience’s energy intensified throughout the increasingly spontaneous set; cheers erupted when she sang “In Love With a Memory,” a standout single from this year’s Blood on the Silver Screen, and even more so when she grabbed her French horn and played an extended opening for “Nothing But a Sad Face On,” closing the set on a wonderfully wistful note. – Mattea Gallaway
Kim Gordon’s Ear-Ringing Trap Pivot
“It’s about bloody time,” Kim Gordon said. “I’ve been trying to get back to Austin.” It’s been years since the avant-garde legend has performed here, but a slew of Sonic Youth Live in Austin albums cement her love affair with the city. Of course, the band she sang and played bass in for 30 years is long gone, and so is the noisy-yet-accessible indie rock they innovated. Gordon makes even more challenging music solo, featuring more clamoring trap beats than intricate guitar melodies, but she and her all-female band beefed up 2024’s glitchy The Collective to create a similar wall of sound. She donned a white shirt plastering the words “GULF OF MEXICO”; made by clothing company the Old Baby following Trump’s name-changing gimmick, its proceeds benefit United Farm Workers. The 72-year-old paired it with short black spandex and sparkly tights, eschewing age-related wardrobe mores as much as opener “BYE BYE,” a spoken word pre-trip packing list set to blasting bass synth, shirked stylistic constraints. Alongside multi-instrumentalists Sarah Register and Camilla Charlesworth and Warpaint drummer/omnipresent hired gun Stella Mozgawa – back at Psych Fest after holding down Courtney Barnett’s equally amped-up set last year – she transformed wimpy, delusional loser POV “I’m a Man” and 2016 solo debut “Murdered Out” into resounding cacophonies. “I feel like Austin is so much more Austin since I came here,” Gordon joked. She meant it as a contrast to her hometown of Los Angeles, but as one of the enduring figures of weird addressing a city seemingly losing it, her words rang – and rang, and rang – happily true. – Carys Anderson
Wombo’s Bare-Bones Intricacy
Wombo doesn’t need clutter to create complexity. The threepiece from Louisville, Kentucky, closed out Saturday night laying their songs bare. There were no instrument changes, no capos, and little key variety, yet each song packed its own punch, laden with contrasting rhythmic elements and structure changes. Live, Wombo’s sound felt constructed by concept and form, composing conversation between Sydney Chadwick’s bass and vocals and drummer Joel Taylor’s sharp, expressive playing. Chadwick’s celestial falsetto crafts melodic coherence, falling in and out of harmony with her defining basslines and carving space in the arrangement for serendipitous notes. Guitarist Cameron Lowe’s sound was at times percussive, at others adhesive, and still at others, accessory – sometimes all within one song. Across unreleased material and fan favorites, Lowe’s acute, arpeggiated solos cleared space for Chadwick’s earworm bass riffs to sink in. His wind-chime harmonics and Taylor’s chameleon use of cymbals created the impression of an expansive instrument library, adding treble and intrigue to their progressive sound. Wombo bookended their set with “Snakey” and “Dreamsickle,” their biggest hits so far, and filled in the pages with headbanging, playfully experimental renditions of “Below the House,” “Sour Sun,” and other staples of Fairy Rust, plus new music. It left us with a distinct vision of what makes their discography to date work, and an exciting taste of what’s to come. – Caroline Drew
Dean Wareham Hypnotizes with Galaxie 500 Classics
Under the mellow mid-afternoon sun, Dean Wareham transported the crowd back to the late Eighties on day three of Austin Psych Fest. Backed by longtime collaborator Britta Phillips on bass and vocals, the pair delivered Galaxie 500’s slowcore shimmer with a clarity that felt familiar and new at the same time. Pulling heavily from 1989’s On Fire, Wareham glided through beloved tracks like “When Will You Come Home” and “Blue Thunder.” His languid guitar tones drifted across the Far Out Lounge, bathing the audience of old heads and young music nerds like myself in fuzz. Phillips’ basslines and harmonies floated on top of the sound without weighing it down, giving the songs a fresh, lived-in glow. In the light of day, the fuzzed-out chords and repetitive melodies felt hypnotizing in the best way. The set didn’t feel like a history lesson or a nostalgia trip – more like Wareham cracked open a window and let us hang our heads out for a while, fuzz in our ears and sun on our faces. – Kyra Bruce
Yo La Tengo Stick to Their Introspective Guns
In 2025, Yo La Tengo would rather play “Tears Are in Your Eyes” than “Cherry Chapstick.” The indie rock veterans have recorded 17 albums in their 41-year career – all of which rightfully, understandably, experiment with sound. Multi-instrumentalists Ira Kaplan, Georgia Hubley, and James McNew have long moved away from their poppiest, thrashingest hits; Sunday night’s nine-song, 70-minute set proved that these days, the trio exists firmly in a soft-rock/ambient/folk landscape, even if those noise freakouts were what the Austin Psych Fest audience so clearly wanted. Scattered applause greeted the first half of YLT’s performance, which included the quiet drone of “This Stupid World,” title track to their most recent album, and that project’s livelier-but-still-contained “Sinatra Drive Breakdown.” One emboldened fan shouted demands, from a sarcastic “Play the quiet stuff” to a straightforward “Play the earlier stuff,” after nearly every track. He spoke for most of the Far Out Lounge on that first request – polite claps transformed into relieved cheers when the act finally played “Sugarcube,” the loud, hooky single from 1997’s beloved I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One. The latter wasn’t accurate. YLT played from 1993’s Painful, 1995’s Electr-o-pura, and 2000’s And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out as much as they did This Stupid World – they just selected those projects’ most delicate moments. No festival fan service here – after four decades of squall, Yo La Tengo has decided, they’ve earned the right to sigh. – Carys Anderson
Bôa Plays More Than The Hit(s)
As the sun set in the background, bringing attention to the beautiful projections across the stage, band and trees, London’s Bôa delivered a set that was both a nod to their Nineties roots and a showcase of their evolved sound. The band, reuniting after a nearly two-decade hiatus, played from their 2024 album Whiplash, which is more rock-forward than some of their newer fans who only know the viral hit “Duvet” might have known. Frontwoman Jasmine Rodgers, her vocals as hauntingly poignant as ever, led the ensemble through a journey of blues-infused rock, diverging from the dreamy tones that first brought them acclaim. The addition of a live violinist added depth and texture into their classic alt-rock sound. The climax arrived with that popular 1998 single, a track that found renewed fame through TikTok and is now certified Platinum. As the opening chords rang out, a sea of iPhones and camcorders rose, capturing the moment fans had eagerly awaited to post on their Instagram stories. I actually saw someone film the entire last song on an iPod Nano, though I’m not sure where they can post that. – Kyra Bruce
Dinosaur Jr. Marks 30 Years of Without a Sound
Sandwiched between a group of mid-60s men in Guided by Voices and Built to Spill T-shirts and a pack of 20-something skaters in Nirvana tees, I stood among a perfect sample size of the demographic for Dinosaur Jr.’s Without a Sound 30th anniversary set. Each group had a very similar conversation: “You like this album?” “Eh, not my favorite, but I mean, it’s still amazing.” I agree – even a mid-tier Dinosaur Jr. record is still a master class. The trio started the set off with their biggest hit and one of my personal favorites, “Feel the Pain,” then went into the blissfully bitter “I Don’t Think So,” which was spiritual for me and my Built to Spill dads. J Mascis, as stoic as ever, shredded his way through the album while offering minimal but hilarious banter (“Hey,” “Alright,” “Thanks for sticking around”), a perfect foil to bassist Lou Barlow’s nonstop pogo energy. “Murph and I didn’t even play on this record, so this is all new to us,” Barlow cracked, grinning. The album might’ve been 30 years old, but it felt as timeless as the crowd. It’s no You’re Living All Over Me, but it was definitely a performance I’ll remember for a long time. – Kyra Bruce
Austin Psych Fest
The Far Out Lounge
April 25-27
This article appears in May 2 • 2025.