This Just In
Forget online, there’s an iPod’s worth of local releases either on the racks now or out soon. The records Austin will be talking about come fall:
GRAND CHAMPEEN, The One That Brought You (Glurp) The best closing-time band in Austin’s third and finest LP, all Southern spectacle and lyrical smarts. Goes down equally well with Jailbreak, Frankenchrist, and Texas Rock for Country Rollers. BURN: “That’s Never Why”
OKKERVIL RIVER, Down the River of Golden Dreams (Jagjaguwar) Coldplay and Will Oldham spend a moonless evening at Big Pink, strumming their pain with their fingers and gazing at the empty chair across the table. Strange and beautiful. BURN: “Dead Faces”
KACY CROWLEY, Moodswing (Stable) Stirring, frank pop songs for grownups, rootsy enough to grab hold of. Meticulously produced by Jon Dee Graham. BURN: “Unrecovered”
CENTRO-MATIC, Love You Just the Same (Misra) Denton émigré Will Johnson & company lock themselves in a trailer with several Flaming Lips and Neil Young albums, setting the guitars on “stun” and tuning the piano to the key of melancholy. Grandaddy’s second cousins. BURN: “Spiraling Sideways”
THE GOLDEN APPLES (Golden Apple Music) Giddy toe-tappers that quench the summer heat like a tall glass of lemonade. Loving Big Star means never having to say you’re sorry. BURN: “Maybe After All”
THE HARD FEELINGS, Rebels Against the Future (Dropkick/ Beerland) Unruly garage-blues with a Spirit of ’77 sneer and plenty of axle grease. “TCB” is presently in love with the tallboy-pounding BTO stomp of “Not Just Anybody.” BURN: “Coalmine”
PINK SWORDS, One Night High (Mortville) Twelve songs in 20 minutes, and at least 10 times as long on attitude. More fun than a shit-faced grope in the alley behind Room 710. BURN: “Bathroom Stall”
VARIOUS ARTISTS, KVRX Local Live Vol. 7: Better Than Friends What’s not to love about a comp that pairs Dead Whale Tide and the Octopus Project with Imperial Teen and the Polyphonic Spree? Plus Halley, the Applicators, and kooky electro from Nytelite. BURN: Radar Brothers’ “Rock of the Lake”; the Acid Mothers Temple & Ultrasound’s “In G Session”
This article appears in August 1 • 2003.