Austinist Show Preview and Album Review: The Black Angels

Image by Briana Purser

The Black Angels at Emo’s
Friday, May 30
Emos (603 Red River St)
$10, Outside Stage, 10pm
[info] | [tickets]

In the case of The Black Angels, aside from trading their guitars for brass instruments, the tags of “psych-rock” and the comparisons to heavy pop bands like The Velvet Underground and the decades-later brew proffered by The Jesus and Mary Chain will forever chase them. But as this band grows, their sound is no less steeped in dark traditions even as it becomes more and more their own. Their debut (Passover) was solid enough, but the band’s sophomore disc Directions to See a Ghost is a sizable, ambitious step forward. While the band may never outgrow Velvet Underground references (their own fault, really, considering their name), their new record rediscovers a sound that never was. Many songs on the records begin minimally with bass or drums, and reach a sterling crescendo under waves of delayed guitar and lead singer Alex Maas’ welcome high register vox – greatly preferable to the rumbling bass voice that usually always seems to accompany heavy music.

And no band around makes a noise, that noise, the way The Black Angels do. The all-encompassing swirl of upper and lower registers, the propulsive rhythm, the pleasurable pain – it’s all very unique to this band. And with Directions to See a Ghost, The Black Angels cast their net even wider. Gone is some of the blues-stomp they executed on standout Passover tracks like “Bloodhounds on My Trail,” and the Angels instead push further into the atmospheric and even exhibit something of a sexy swagger. Passover’s preoccupation with the Vietnam was apropos considering the parallels with Iraq, but the direction was still an odd one. Directions begins in the near present with the intonation, “Now you’re on the run son/ since 1981” on the opener “You on the Run” and then digs into some “I Wanna Be Your Dog” dirtiness: “yeah get on your knees you freak/ and please please me.”