Spray Paint
Rodeo Songs (S.S. Records)Equal parts avant-punk stridency and sun-basted lysergia, Spray Paint cultivates a strangely alluring equilibrium on its second album. Once the initial system shock of the road-hearty Austin trio’s frayed guitar machinations, corrugated tin shack reverb, and salvage yard percussion subsides, the whole sonic package slithers toward sensibility one short, sharp missive at a time. A loose-but-discernable theme centered around low-rent depravity bolsters the narrative. The Southern Gothic guns-and-drugs scene in “Day Sniffer” never gets a full accounting, but the scratched metal guitar repetition approximating either a faulty bug zapper or unbalanced ceiling fan proves harrowingly effective on its own. Likewise, snippets regarding a shady glass-cutter on “Bring Dumpster Back” are fleshed out in the creeping trash-rock maelstrom. “False Cowboys” summons Joy Division’s icy blade until a left turn lands the band in hardcore-era Devo environs. Conditions deteriorate rapidly as the staccato blast furnace “Littering Team” belches forth a fiery froth of cinder and ground-up sinew. “Real Good Smile” employs an inebriated stutter-step rhythm to incant deep-seated disorientation before “Ultimate Umpire” raises the urgency by juxtaposing the jagged ruins of surf and no-wave riffs over a steadfast, oblivion-bound beat. The whole volatile package screams for celluloid exploitation.
This article appears in February 21 • 2014.
