Album Review: The Eponymous Debut of the Casual Strangers

Casual Strangers

Musical acts, like normal people, run in packs, scenes, cliques, etc.

After my review of Megafauna's latest album, The Maximalist, a couple other bands out of Austin, TX came out to say hi to me. I would definitely love to become more familiar with the scene in Austin, TX.

(It should be noted that if you're reading this and you want me to review anything, I'll listen to whatever's sent!)

The Casual Strangers.

In an era of an ever expanding list of terrible band names, I think this one is pretty damned cool. The standard trope of opposites becomes something very cool here.  I always hope to bring new artists to your attention, and this band couldn't be any newer. This is their first album.

The Casual Strangers

This is NPR Music. Do you listen to NPR?

Yeah? Listen to this record.

Seriously though, it's an avant garde set of songs that refuse to be placed into a genre.

In terms of sound, there is an ever present Pink Floyd style guitar sound, but sometimes it backs away for a Gary Clark Jr style tone.

Recorded direct to tape with vintage instruments and it sounds as such.

Not content to just write an album, the Casual Strangers have chosen to write story that could long be studied to figure out what it is, much less what it means.

A lazy way to describe this album would be progressive, but that's not really fair to the band.

During the phased out space songs there is guitar and crunchy solos. There are sections of slow plodding chords filled with soulful singing, layers of synth, instruments I can't even name, and more than once, it felt like the noise/art/rock song turned into a Deee Lite track....but Bootsie Collins never says DIG!

There's an old quote: "There are only two kinds of music, good and bad."

Few times in the history of music has this ever been an a more appropriate tag. The Casual Strangers make good music, but I'll be damned if I could tell you what kind of radio is in the wrong for not playing it.

Release: 7/22/14
Genre: ???
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