After 12 years and 12(ish) albums, Centro-matic/South San Gabriel remain mainstays of Texas music. In that time they’ve found acceptance beyond the Lone Star State – namely SSG in Europe – but they’ve always been very much a “Texas” band, having danced the “Denton-Austin-Houston Three Step” thousands of times, and never having strayed far away from home for long. With such feelings of familiarity and community, listening to the new double-album, Dual Hawks, is a lot like heading over to the neighbor’s place to check out his new grill while he cooks a few juicy ‘gers.

The Centro-matic side is a return to the low-fi edge that has marked their sound on almost every album, except 2006’s Fort Recovery, a very polished but largely boring album. Familiar low-fi, overdriven guitars mark “Rat Patrol and DJs,” followed up with vocal harmonies and a lot of “ooh”-ing, classic Centro-matic, through-and-through. Immediately there is a return to the advances the band made on albums like Love You Just The Same, combining their knack for low-fi guitar rock with Johnson’s more consistently well-written songs.

Even songs like “Quality Strange” and “I, The Kite,” which are more calculated and precise as on Fort Recovery, feel original and hold up as some of the best tunes on the album. Like almost every Centro-matic album though, there is a certain amount of filler, especially in the back half of the album. “All You Farewells” has its moments, but for the most part feels lifeless and stagnant with crescendos that lead nowhere; “Counting the Scars” is stripped down to Johnson and an acoustic guitar, an interesting sound, but one I can’t help think would be more appropriate on one of his solo records rather than an otherwise upbeat Centro-matic one.

Continue reading Album Review: Centro-Matic/South San Gabriel - Dual Hawks (Misra)

Feel good albums are a tricky thing. Every time I put one on, I dig all over it for a couple of listens, and then I feel kind of dirty for listening to something so obviously happy. No matter what’s getting your goat-gears a-grindin’, I can assure you that This is Ivy League will cheer you up, that’s a given. From the introductory cymbal roll of “The Richest Kids” to the fleeting organ vibrato that closes “Don’t Waste Your Love On Me,” the soul of this record is sunny and cheery, like watching a parade go by outside your mid-town hotel room window. But dare you sacrifice your dignity to listen to acoustic pop? Dare you?

Continue reading Album Review: This Is Ivy League - This Is Ivy League

The Mammoth is big. It’s unlikely that Ghost of the Russian Empire named the album to describe their sound, but it’s certainly fitting. On their first LP (following last year’s EP, With Fiercest Demolition EP), Ghost of the Russian Empire push with post-rock intensity and eloquence, offering a frightening conceptual album large enough to get lost in while also being surgically concise.

Continue reading Album Review: Ghost of the Russian Empire - The Mammoth

Dramatization: Like everyone else I know, I’ve recently been splitting my life between Austin, Texas and the crime-ridden streets of Liberty City. By far, the most compelling part of the game to me is the music; so much work has gone into making the city “come alive” as a community, and the radio stations account for a lot of that. Whether you’re listening to talk radio, the Iggy Pop show, or LCD Soundsystem on Radio Brook, it makes running down hookers and shooting mobsters out the window at high speeds that much more enjoyable. Today, while I was testing the limits of my freshly “acquired” Turismo on the city’s most prominent straightaway/bridge, the Smashing Pumpkin’s “1979″ came blaring onto the radio. And boy does that song take me back. For my generation, those are the classics: 90’s radio-rock. And as much as I love all this “genre defining experimentalism,” I’d really like to find a new band that just plain rocks it like that song did every time I turned on “The Edge.” Oh what’s that Sybris? You’re up to the challenge? Well, by all means then, proceed.

Continue reading Album Review: Sybris - Into The Trees

Martin Crane and Erik Wofford are Austin’s production dream team. These two masters could make even a high school ska band sound good. But for as much talent as there is behind the knobs and switches on this recording, there’s just as much talent on the business side of the microphones, compliments of Praveen Ayyagari, with some help from Martin Crane and a few others, including members of White Denim and Tacks, The Boy Disaster. After listening to album after album of new music, it’s nice to sit back, relax and tap my foot along to Canopy’s first offering, a short, 5-song, laid-back (in a good way) EP called Canopy/Anopy.

Continue reading Album Review: Canopy – Canopy/Anopy EP (Autobus)

You run a certain risk when taking the “indie-pop” route to making music. A good album requires inherently catchy tunes with pop sensibility and a unique sound. On Pardon Me, Are Those Your Claws On My Back, the Faceless Werewolves walk the line between good indie pop and just plain boring. For the most part, the band is largely successful, but the album does cover the entire range of “catchy” to “skip!” in a quick 36 minutes. I might sound a little “pitchforky” here, but isn’t that the state of indie music today? A fine line between catchy, interesting and fun, and boring weird and annoying?

Continue reading Album Review: Faceless Werewolves - Pardon Me, Are Those Your Claws On My Back?