Don’t mess with Texas’s Strange Boys: some Austinite Nietzsche reading lo-fi punk-rockers, who just released their first major record, The Strange Boys and Girls Club. The Sambol brothers (Ryan, guitar/lead vocals, writes all the songs and his elder, Phillip, bass) started the band, are now accompanied by another guitartist (that’s right), Greg Enlow, a guy named Hammer on drums, and a fellow named Neeley on the keys. The top-track, “Woe is You and Me,” stands out in its amped woozy blues, epitomizes the kind of drunken, at times nihilistic vibe that these Strange Boys emanate. Ryan’s voice is at times distractingly Dylany, but the beauty about that nasal rasp is that the ‘original’, Dylan’s I mean, was an impression of the timeless nasally Blues masters, so Sambol effectively makes it his own. These guys love John Lennon. Track three, “Should Have Shot Paul,” pretty explicitly asserts that Mark David Champman “Shot the wrong moptop.” I also had the tune of the top-track (see above) stuck in my head, and couldn’t figure out what Beatles tune it was. Turned out “Oh Yoko” was the one, not the Beatles but John’s very own, off of Imagine. You can listen to the two, and make your own judgment. Moptops aside, the Strange Boys’ witty lyrics, some great rockabilly rollin, and that grubbier stuff (colored something blue, green or somethin in between) that sits under any real punks, screams some real art that had me listening to the album a second, third, fourth time. In fact, number five’s under way.

SEE 13th Floor Elevators, Black Lips

-SNICK

Vampire Hands’ ‘Me & You Cherry Red / Cuz It’s a Beach Funeral’ combine numerous recent trends: the ever popular noise of Wavves, the psychedelia of White Magic and Sun Araw, and the garage rock of Black Lips and the Crystal Stilts. Vocals range from high-pitched wailing to low, monotonous drone, all coupled with dominating tribal beats and rhythmic cymbals that could have been sampled from a Panda Bear track. The album’s first half – Me & You Cherry Red – is newer and contains some of the band’s catchiest and most popular songs, such as  “No Fun” and “Safe World.” The second section, Cuz It’s A Beach Funeral, is more lo-fi and experimental, with odd, distorted instrumental tracks such as “Beach Funeral.” Overall this is a band to watch out for! Up until now they have made a name for themselves by regularly opening for Wavves, but the varied and unique sound of this record will surely make Vampire Hands much more independent and significant.

-JANE

Julie Doiron has made an excellent career for herself playing folky, distorted, almost-expansive dreampunk. She started her career as the bassist/vocalist of Eric’s Trip, one of the first Canadian lo-fi bands to make it big stateside; she’s collaborated with Phil Elverum and Okkervil River; and she’s just made one of the best albums of early 2009. Lyrically, Doiron combines simple, playful, and emotional into enjoyable little ditties about the everyday. Musically, she returns to her rocking teenager aesthetic, with an album very close in sound to Eric’s Trip. Sonically, she knows when to expand her sound and when to wrap you up in distortion. If you’re a fan of The Golden Hours, Phil Elverum (’Lost Wisdom’ or ‘Black Wooden Ceiling Opening’ especially), or Woelv/O Paon, you’ll love this!

-Fleet Admiral Zipper