Taking cues from their namesake, Ray Davies of the Kinks, Dallas’ Deathray Davies also pay homage to Roky Erickson, Nuggets-era garage bands, and Guided By Voices. The Davies share Voices’ same Brit-invasion worship for interstitial song snippets, but despite those influences they are no ventriloquist act. Two years ago the group’s brainchild, John Dufilho, was accepted to Austin’s South by Southwest Music Festival on the basis of a tape of self-recorded songs and had to cobble together a band. Thus the Davies were born. The Return of the Drunk Ventriloquist includes a sextet of players from Dallas indie bands (most notably Peter Schmidt, formerly of Three on a Hill and Funland). These fifteen tracks are a blissful ride of experimental disorder, all fuzzed-out guitars, Augie Meyers-like organ fills, and instantly memorable melodies.
