Jeff McCord on the month’s new releases
 

White Denim

Fits

Downtown Music

The best rock trios conjure a rare sort of magic. Each member has to pull his or her weight and, with nothing to hide behind, must know exactly what to play (and, just as important, what not to play). Austin’s White Denim does just that, specializing in smart, fragmented melody lines set to skittering rhythms. In the past, the band’s formula yielded both starkly fascinating grooves and, at times, a meandering, disjointed tangle. Yet on Fits (Downtown Music), the group is working the puzzle out. While no less schizophrenic stylistically, most songs here seem developed and purposeful. Slowed down, the sound can border on the folkish, but mostly the band rocks—furiously. The opening tracks set a relentless pace. Bassist Steve Terebecki and drummer Joshua Block lay down redlined, hard-driving foundations with abrupt changes, while guitarist/vocalist James Petralli dances over the top with brittle, chopped chording and a voice that ranges from a croon to a scream. Borrowing from the best—Cream, the Minutemen—they fearlessly roam from funk to blues to prog without ever losing their way.

Norah Jones

The Fall

Blue Note

Stop the presses: Norah Jones is trying something new. With a combined 36 million CDs sold and her three previous releases multi-platinum, one might argue that she can afford to experiment. But give her credit. She could stick to her sleepy after-hours balladry forever and disappoint virtually no one—except maybe herself. Restless, she’s shuffled the deck. Not that The Fall (Blue Note) is a radical departure; her rich voice is beguiling whether her cadence is fast or slow. But on this album, she has co-written with Ryan Adams and Okkervil River’s Will Sheff, enlisted producer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon), rounded up a new band, and prodded her drummers to pound out some actual (gasp!) tempos. She even straps on an electric guitar. The venture is not wholly successful—there’s a dirge or two and one song drenched in more cheesy electronics than a seventies porn score. Yet while Jones will never completely let her hair down, damned if she doesn’t come close. It’s not a stretch to call “It’s Gonna Be” a rocker, and overall, as both a writer and a singer, Jones seems to have really woken up.

Robert Earl Keen

The Rose Hotel

Lost Highway

Fabled Texas yarn spinner Robert Earl Keen has seen his songs resonate among his many fans for years, and his work has influenced a new generation of songwriters. With a quick, dry wit, he makes what he does sound easy, and that’s part of the problem. His laissez-faire attitude and detached, unemotional singing give his detractors the impression, fair or no, that he’s not trying that hard. Both fans and critics will be emboldened by The Rose Hotel (Lost Highway), Keen’s first album of new material in four years. Poignant, genial works like the title track and “Goodbye Cleveland,” as well as his Levon Helm tribute, “The Man Behind the Drums,” easily belong alongside the best songs in his canon. But setting Townes Van Zandt’s “Flying Shoes” to a throbbing rock beat is not exactly a creative reimagining, and choruses like “Throwing rocks, getting stoned” and a tune about his prowess at doing nothing (“Something That I Do”) don’t make the case for gravitas. None of this likely concerns Keen. It’s an inseparable part of his persona—which may keep him from being a critics’ darling but is key to his undeniable appeal.

Bob Schneider

Bob Schneider

The 44-year-old Austin rocker has fronted many bands, but it was on the success of his 2000 solo album, Lonelyland, that he rose to national fame. His latest CD, Lovely Creatures (Kirtland), was just released.

You’re the son of an opera singer. Yes, but my dad’s now retired. He was in a band—he actually taught me how to play guitar—but then he fell in love with opera and moved us to Germany when I was two. I spent twenty years in Munich, though we moved to El Paso for a couple years so that my dad could study with a voice teacher.

It must have been interesting to go from Munich to El Paso. It was terrifying. But I later ended up at UT—El Paso and had a blast. I was trying to get into an art school in California and didn’t. Unbeknownst to me, my mom, to get me out of the house, had applied for me to go to UTEP. So it’s where I ended up, and it’s where I heard about Austin.

You played in a series of bands—Joe Rockhead, Ugly Americans—and formed one that is ongoing, the Scabs. How did you arrive at a solo career? The Scabs started in ’95, which is the year I got sober. I had just made a record with Ugly Americans. I got sober, and it was like when you wake up and go, “Ooh, I can’t believe I went home with that girl.” It wasn’t that the band wasn’t good; it just wasn’t what I wanted to do creatively. So I ended up forming the Scabs. We were about juxtaposing musical styles and trying to be as exciting as possible. But then we found that the more dance music we played, the more hot women would come to the shows. So we started playing fewer weird performance rock songs like “Satan Stole My Tampons,” and eventually we had nine hundred people a night at [Austin club] Antone’s. The place only holds about six hundred. Then, in ’98, I wrote a song called “2002” and tried to play it with the Scabs, and it just didn’t work. It was like, “Okay, everybody, stop partying and listen to this depressing, slow song for four minutes.”

How did the success of Lonelyland change things for you? It gave me a lot of confidence, because initially I couldn’t get anybody out to the solo shows. I remember I went to see the Resentments at [Austin’s] Saxon Pub, and I loved the vibe of the place. So I said, “Give me two hours on your worst night of the week, and let me see what happens.” I’ve been playing there for ten years now. That, with the album, gave me a real boost. We got quite a bit of publicity, enough that I could get people to come see me in a place like Seattle. There was a lot of notoriety—I was also dating Sandra Bul-lock. But my actual day-to-day life? It never changed. I have a son now, who’s four—that’ll change your life. Yet what I do is still the same: I write songs, record them, and play music at night. I don’t have much of a social life.

That’s not your reputation. It’s ironic, because I’ve been sober for fourteen years now. But my audience is a serious drinking crowd. I’ve set bar records all across the country.

The new album brings you back to where you were with Lonelyland, an independent release with a lot of potential hits. I’m excited about reaching a broader audience. I don’t believe it will improve the inner quality of my life, but that said, I’d love to play for lots of people.

The album is full of love songs, it seems. They’re all love songs, and at first I was mystified by it because I just went through a divorce, which was awful. But what I realized was that having a son, and the love I have for him, is stronger than anything I’ve ever felt. And since I never write autobiographically—life just doesn’t rhyme like that—what usually comes through is the way I’m feeling. That’s why they’re all love songs: I was falling in love with my son.