Music

Dallas' Best Music

Five loyal local music writers pick favorites

By Merritt Martin  ,  Darryl Smyers ,  Noah W. Bailey ,  Jesse Hughey ,  and  GEOFF JOHNSTON

In the pages that follow, our corporate overlords provide an alternative to gratuitous music writer geekdom and end-of-year lists, but being who we are, we threatened to burn down the building if we didn't get to make some kind of contribution to the list-making canon. Apparently, they like this building.

Since this ship's currently without a captain, what follows is a local top 10 by committee, with five of us picking the two local releases we fell hardest for in 2007. Obviously, getting some of us to pick just two was a challenge, and some great bands fell by the wayside—apologies to RTB2, 100 Damned Guns, Dylan Sneed, Twisted Black, Sarah Reddington, Dust Congress, Glen Farris and the others we lost along the way. In no particular order, here are our favorites of the year that was.

Bridges & Blinking Lights
Standing on the Same Stick
Self-released

Hot damn, I cannot and will not stop listening to this album. From the soulful scruff of Jake Wilganowski's tenor to the spot-on harmonies and strings that add bang to gang vocals, it's what the South and a little '70s irresponsibility would do to your favorite Guided by Voices. Bridges have achieved amazing consistency from song to song. Without so much as one skipper, these Denton boys have struck indie pop gold. Standing is one hit off the vaporizer during a good nature documentary and then a random dance party. It's strong, it's sensitive and I want it to hold me. —M.M.

Doug Burr
On Promenade
Velvet Blue Music

Doug Burr is a perennial underdog in this town—too Americana for your average blogger but at the same time far too great to be stuck playing joints such as the Cavern for the rest of his life. On Promenade may not change all that, but it does make a case for Burr as one of Texas' best songwriters, with songs such as "Whippoorwill" and "Thought I Saw a Rose" evoking everyone from Slaid Cleaves to Mark Kozelek. It's the work of multi-instrumentalist Todd Pertll that seals the deal, however, coating Burr's perfectly crafted tunes in layers of atmospheric pedal steel that will have you convinced Daniel Lanois must have dropped by the studio. —N.W.B.

The Demigs
Yardling
Self-released

Hearing Chris Demiglio on The Demigs' impressive debut is almost as much fun as seeing him live. Big and bald with veins busting out of his forehead, the guy seems on the verge of dementia on each and every song. Somehow, Demiglio transferred that manic intensity into the studio and out came Yardling, a post-punk and Brit-pop nuptial that caterwauls its way to Pixies-inspired paradise. Tracks such as "Summer Spiders," "Throw Me Overboard" and "Dulce" are edgy, dissonant paeans to Frank Black and Bob Mould, songs that structure noise in all manner of catchy ways. —D.S.

Robert Gomez
Brand New Towns
Bella Union

Former circus musician and world-music vagabond Robert Gomez is further proof that Denton is kicking Big D's ass when it comes to rock-and-roll innovation. Gomez writes dark confessions of obsession and remorse, then accents them with melancholy accordion, horns and strings without ever making it sound showy or bombastic. Songs such as "The Leaving," with its sad-goodbye lyric, churning organ and twisting strands of clean electric guitar make Brand New Towns a more than worthy follow-up to his 2005 solo debut, Etherville. —J.H.

History at Our Disposal
Symbols in the Architecture
Creative Capitalism

Tangled in spacey macrobiotic ambience, History at Our Disposal's Symbols in the Architecture blends organic acoustic instrumentation, bubbling electronic flourishes, warm quiet passages, jagged dissonant asides, seemingly unsystematic surges and carefully calculated movements with an expertly reserved hand. If The Books and Neutral Milk Hotel assimilated into a colossal Japanese fighting robot that performed funeral dirges for circus clowns, the sonic product might be almost as eerily wonderful as Symbols in the Architecture. Artful without being obnoxiously avant-garde, audibly accessible without compromising creative uniqueness, History at Our Disposal has created an atypical breed of album that is not content to simply add atmosphere; it constructs its own orbit. —G.J.

Hogpig
Hold Back the Curse
TXMF

Seems like good, nay, great musicians always have to slightly mask their love of the metal with a touch of irony...or, in the case of Hogpig, songs involving teats and Camaros. And thank the Dio. Hogpig did something amazing when they recorded Hold Back the Curse. They rocked faces and pants, and they did it well ("Heatcar" and "The Switchback" are fine examples). Yeah, there may be some heshin' out and there may be some full-on screaming, but Hold Back is a seriously solid album deserving many a listen. Hogpig may be no more—itself a victim of that dying brand of rock...and overkill—but their swan song lives, er, rocks on. —M.M.

Sean Kirkpatrick
Turn on the Interference
Gutterth Records

The simplest way for me to judge whether an album makes my "best of the year" list is gauging how often I want to listen to it after forming my initial opinion. With the exception of Radiohead's In Rainbows, I found myself playing Sean Kirkpatrick's Turn on the Interference more than any other record this year—local or not. Its fantastic, guitar-free mix of warped melodies and dramatic piano pounding is sure to blow out all the junk between your ears. Amazingly, this is the first solo effort from the Paper Chase member and former Maxine's Radiator frontman. —J.H.

Mom
Little Brite
Pancakes for Mattie Records

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