pjones@star-telegram.comThe music industry fell even further in 2008, hemorrhaging jobs, profits and talent. But, closer to home, the past 12 months provided some of the sharpest, shiniest tunes in recent memory. Veterans and neophytes alike unveiled a range of textures and moods, moving from gritty realism to Technicolor fantasy and, occasionally, putting a fresh spin on the tried-and-Texan country-rock sound.
Here are 20 of the best albums the Lone Star State had to offer (in alphabetical order by artist).
Erykah Badu, New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)
On her first album in half a decade, Badu's deliriously funky, politically charged New Amerykah reveals an artist shifting into an introspective phase marked by reluctance and acceptance. A galaxy of underground hip-hop stars applied their skills to these woozy, stylish tracks, slicing and dicing samples, creating moods both melancholy and militant while soaking the entire album in a vintage vinyl feel.
Black Tie Dynasty, Down Like Anyone
While the glossy synths that marked much of Black Tie Dynasty's Movements are streaked across these 10 tracks, the quartet goes bigger and bolder on Down Like Anyone, a confident showing from one of the area's most consistently entertaining bands. Produced with help from John Congleton, Dynasty layers on strings and guitars while stripping Cory Watson's urgent, yearning vocals to the bone. The approach lends cuts like Lay Low, You Got a Lover or the fantastic Much Scarier a compelling immediacy.
T Bone Burnett, Tooth of Crime
This, Burnett's follow-up to his acclaimed 2006 comeback The True False Identity, is a violent, foreboding companion piece to playwright Sam Shepard's 1972 work of the same name. The twisted, tense soundscapes grab hold from the unsettling opener, Anything I Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, extending into the funereal Dope Island, a sinister track aided greatly by frequent Burnett collaborator Sam Phillips. The apocalyptic Crime explodes like a feverish dream but lingers on the margins of your mind.
Doug Burr, The Shawl
Denton singer/songwriter Burr (who made quite the impression with his 2007 sophomore effort, On Promenade) delivered one of the year's most delicate, haunting and consistently thrilling discs with The Shawl. The cumulative effect is overwhelming. Burr's plaintive voice wraps itself around these spare, often melancholy compositions, and while The Shawl has its roots in the Bible, the songs never feel overtly spiritual. Instead, there's a sustained air of reverence that makes tracks like Which We Have Heard and Known absolutely stunning.
Calhoun, Falter.Waver.Cultivate
Produced by Tim Locke, Stuart Sikes and Jordan Roberts, these tracks are straightforward, melodic indie rock sans pretense — it's a lot harder to create than you might think. It's a consistently engaging album rife with swooning pop flourishes and Locke's reliably incisive lyrics; Drifting and the bouncy Apocalypse (A Love Story) are high points.
Centro-matic/South San Gabriel, Dual Hawks
With each successive Centro-matic disc, I become more awed by singer/songwriter Will Johnson's seemingly limitless capacity for musical brilliance. As expected, the crunchier, up-tempo Centro-matic stuff sits in stark contrast with the achingly pastoral, luminous SSG tracks. Dual Hawks is a staggering, soaring accomplishment from one of North Texas' most essential artists and his massively talented band of collaborators.
The Cut*off, Packaged Up for Beginners
The Cowtown quintet's collaboration with uber-producer Salim Nourallah has resulted in some dark, devastatingly melodic compositions that slip under your skin and stay there. It's hard to shake the vocal similarities between Kyle Barnhill and Glen Phillips (not a bad thing, mind you) or the fine mixture of left-field non sequiturs and searing metaphors. Beginners is a masterful showing, a record that grows richer with each successive spin.
Alejandro Escovedo, Real Animal
Guitarist and singer/songwriter Escovedo, who is based in the Hill Country town of Wimberley, survived a life-threatening bout of hepatitis C in 2003, and his latest record pulses with a vitality known only by the very young or the very grateful. Expansive at 13 tracks, Real Animal dabbles in a variety of styles, all of which manage to feel cohesive. Juxtaposing gorgeous sense-memories like Swallows of San Juan against raucous rave-ups like Chip N' Tony isn't jarring but rather is designed to underscore the extremes of the artist's life.
Fight Bite, Emerald Eyes
The North Texas duo of Jeff Louis and Leanne Macomber make sweet music under a savage name. The pair's full-length debut evokes the melancholy likes of My Bloody Valentine and Club 8, dusted with a hint of nostalgia. It's a breathtaking accomplishment, 10 mesmerizing tracks captured in spartan fashion. Macomber's ethereal voice is buried beneath swirling layers of keyboard and augmented by ambient effects (and Louis' vocals) that can send a chill racing up the spine.
Murry Hammond, I Don't Know Where I'm Going But I'm on My Way
Filled with beautiful, haunting tunes like I Never Will Marry and Lost at Sea, the Mark Neill-produced album is an astonishingly powerful piece of work, a record that does not let go. It's unstuck in time, a free-floating amalgam of cowboy poetry, rail-riding truth-seekers and peculiar, gospel-inspired imagery that catches in the corners of your mind.
Collin Herring, Past Life Crashing
A raw scrape of an album, born out of a couple of rough years, including stop-start recording sessions, rehab and divorce. Yet for all of the agony seeping out of these alt-country compositions, Herring manages to find a bit of solace. Past Life Crashing is quietly devastating and loaded with top-of-the-line talent: Canadian folkie Kathleen Edwards and her husband, Colin Cripps (who produced a handful of cuts here) pitch in, as does Collin's dad, Ben Roi Herring, and drummer Ken Coomer.
Sarah Jaffe, Even Born Again
Denton singer/songwriter Sarah Jaffe's EP proves her astonishing talent is the real thing. Jaffe is a big local draw, beloved by all who hear her plaintive acoustic confessions, and she joins the legion of phenomenally talented females making music in North Texas. Highlights include the undulating Black Hoax Lie and the shattering Two Intangibles Can't Be Had. Cannot wait for her '09 full-length debut.
Clint Niosi, The Sound of Dead Horses Beaten Against Cold Shoulders
Fort Worth singer/songwriter Niosi's lived-in lyrics and haunting, folky compositions give this disc a spectral, irresistible energy. That evocative title is culled from one of the record's best tracks — Coalmine Canary — but Niosi doesn't skimp on the other nine cuts. Produced by James Talambas, the CD includes lotsa local talent drafted to help Niosi flesh out this slow-burn stunner.
Odis, Feel
A disc stuffed full of slightly bluesy, sexy, crunchy rock that sounds phenomenal with a cold one in hand. Dallas quartet Odis takes a bow with this 11-track affair that swings, slashes and smokes. Frontman Larry Gayao has limber vocals that can curl from a snarl into a scream on a dime. Feel is confident without being cocky but conveys a sense of reckless abandon that must explode like nitroglycerine in concert.
PlayRadioPlay!, Texas
Aledo's Daniel Hunter made the most of his major-label debut, draping his appealingly earnest lyrics with a thick coat of "poptronica" gloss. His time in the big leagues was short-lived (Hunter asked to be released from his contract with Island Records mid-year), but for those who took a chance on this hefty collection, the rewards were plentiful.
PPT, Denglish
What should have been a game changer turned out to be a swan song. Dallas/Fort Worth-based PPT's brilliant, brain-bending opus, billed as a concept album that fuses an iPod's worth of influences, was this group's final collaboration before splitting up last summer. With the witty, weirdly compelling rhymes of Picnic, Pikahsso and Tahiti, Denglish (a hybrid of Dallas and English) features some of the smartest hip-hop to hit North Texas streets in recent memory.
Stumptone, Gravity Suddenly Released
Brilliant, beautiful, heartbreaking — that is Stumptone in a nutshell. The Fort Worth foursome's follow-up to 1999's self-titled debut is a wash of ambient, visceral rock delicate enough to cushion dreams and off-kilter enough to hasten nightmares. The group (Chris Plavidal, Peter Salisbury, Mike Throneberry and Frank Cervantez) describes their approach as striving to push the boundaries of psychedelic music. They've not only succeeded, but they've set the bar quite high for anyone who dares follow.
The Theater Fire, Matter and Light
The group's third album is a masterful blend of ominous moods, quirky lyrics and a potent artistic focus that somehow holds together some disparate, occasionally nightmarish tunes. The album isn't all minor-key musings and midnight-hour vignettes; in fact, many of its most winning moments are lighter than air. Don Feagin and Curtis Heath, who share vocal duties, each have marvelously expressive voices (they weep like fiddles and creak like saddles) that can make even the happiest songs feel like dirges.
Titanmoon, Film Black
Titanmoon, which splits its time between Fort Worth and Dallas, returns with the ambitious Film Black, a 12-track effort billed by the quartet as (ahem) "a musical conceptualization of the film noir genre." Concept albums are always tricky to pull off, because failing means looking pretentious, but Titanmoon more than accomplishes its goal. These dense indie-rock compositions have an epic sweep and clear-eyed emotional heft.
Toadies, No Deliverance
Seven years after the underrated Hell Below/Stars Above, the Fort Worth foursome (with new bassist Doni Blair) returns to the spotlight with this viciously entertaining slab of sonic brawn. Produced by David Castell, these 10 cuts blend the Toadies' trademark fusion of raw violence and blunt sexuality without ever feeling strained or stilted. It's not often that a band can recapture what made it big in the first place, especially without being overtly obvious about it.