Planets

Austin’s virtual jukebox – its nonexistent “cloud” – rains down a beer-can-sized hailstone in Planets opener “It’s Not 1977.” With the title hollered beforehand as if it were the all-girl quartet’s mission statement, followed by a “motherfucker!,” its 2:23 punk tunnel boasts back-alley vox (“no one misbehaves anymore … the record stores are empty … heroes get harder and harder to find”), wicked guitar/bass/drum sound bleed, and a primitive throb almost more implied than executed. Perfect, in other words: eight songs in 17 minutes that revive 1977, which locally equals the early 1980s Raul’s scene. “Doctor Disappearing” next wields an equally bruising bash and big Runaways sound, while “Drug Song” flirts with Spector-era Ramones and the adjoining “Love Song” pounds in waves like a Beach Boys song gone mosh. “Napkin” juices the theatricality of late, great Austin New Waver Robbie Jacks with the borderline hysteria of Sleater-Kinney, “Weapon Void” next lacking only Corin Tucker’s hair-raising shriek. Young, primal, feminine. Out of this world.

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This article appears in August 5 • 2011.

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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.