Wild America

The Sea (Freedom School)

Another graduate of Matador comp Casual Victim Pile, the East Austin quartet revs its four-song debut EP on Brooklyn imprint Freedom School, cutting late-period Naked Raygun with Naked Soul (opener “Please”), plus an early Westerberg/Stinson conviction hammered into riff and hot vox on “Work Work Work.” Major label Green Day downstroke (“Know Nothing”) meets a Midwestern Mudhoney (“The Sea”), clean chord changes and drive-through melodies muddied by bar-band aesthetics. Sold. ****

This article appears in May 28 • 2010.

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San Francisco native Raoul Hernandez crossed the border into Texas on July 2, 1992, and began writing about music for the Chronicle that fall, debuting with an album review of Keith Richards’ Main Offender. By virtue of local show previews – first “Recommendeds,” now calendar picks – his writing’s appeared in almost every issue since 1993.