The Midgetmen

High Life

The second album from these Austin slop-punk mavens can’t replicate the beery charms of 2002’s Pool Party Emergency. Without departed vocalist Keith Shepherd around to keep the band’s Twin/Tone-inspired roar on track, High Life disintegrates into a spiraling muddle of unevenness. You can hear closing time conviction trying to bust through on songs like “Casino and Beer” and “Fanfare (for the Common Man),” but it never quite falls together.

**

This article appears in September 16 • 2005.

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Greg Beets was born in Lubbock on the day Richard Nixon was elected president. He has covered music for the Chronicle since 1992, writing about everyone from Roky Erickson to Yanni. Beets has also written for Billboard,Uncut, Blurt, Elmore, and Pop Culture Press. Before his digestive tract cried uncle, he co-published Hey! Hey! Buffet!, an award-winning fanzine about all-you-can-eat buffets.