Ugly Beats

I reviewed the new-ish album from these garage revivalists about a week ago at Blurt.

It’s called Motor!.

The Ugly Beats, out of Austin, party like it's 1965 on their third full-length Motor!. Joe Emery, the band's singer and main songwriter, has a high, romantic way with a verse, sounding at times like a lonely cowboy ("See"), at others like a mop-topped British invader (on the Neil Diamond cover "You'll Forget"). Jeanine Attaway, she of the knee-high go-go boots, adds a lush swirl of organ sound to the whole enterprise, a sustained texture that does much to smooth over rackety exuberance of guitar, drums and bass. And about those guitars, two of them, one manned by Emery, the other by Jake Garcia. They oscillate between hard fuzz and soft jangle, but always pursue satisfyingly symmetric riffs. In fact, the guitar lines are not so much predictable as inevitable. They go exactly the way that they have to go -- from the first ringing power chord to the last baroque flourish.

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They’re super fun live if you ever get a chance.


I think every time I've ever seen the Ugly Beats, I've been at SXSW with Clif, who knows them somehow.