Local Bands You Should Be Listening To: Volume 27

The Millbrook Estates

Photo Credit: The Millbrook Estates Bandcamp

Situated in the heart of idyllic Millbrook, New York there lies a historic mansion playfully in disagreement with the village's imbricated rows of Colonial and Neo-Georgian homes: The Hitchcock Estate. Commonly referred to as Millbrook, this classic Victorian has housed just about every archetype of American myth from aristocratic scion (the Mellon Family) to psychedelic vanguard (Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg). Given the mansion's association with Leary, hippiedom, and 60s excess, it's fitting that a psychedelic rock band from Austin has borrowed its name. Formed in the spring of 2017, The Millbrook Estates make colorful psych teeming with freakish experimentation and hallucinatory digression. "When it's time to take my lashings/ I'll take them fine, they won't be lasting" the band hums on "Alvin," sounding less like plain ol' vintage stylists and more like disciplined ascetics embracing Ra. There's a sincerity here that rarely emerges within the deluge of contemporary psych, and for that, we should be excited.

When: Friday, November 17th at Mohawk & Wednesday, November 22nd at Hotel Vegas

Lung Letters

Photo Credit: Facebook

Taking members from local face-melters A Giant Dog and Flesh Lights, Lung Letters make vicious, raw punk rock that seeks to eradicate the genre's limitations. On Passing Days, the band's newest EP, Lung Letters blaze through three tracks of angular guitars, Biafra-inspired vibrato, thunderous percussion, and apocalyptic imagery. In this way, Lung Letters recall punk titans of the 1980s—the names Jack Grisham, Harley Flanagan, and the aforementioned Jello Biafra all come to mind. And the EP's messy cacophony certainly reminds one of the industrial orgies found in Flipper and Scratch Acid songs, two bands namechecked on Lung Letters' Bandcamp page. But Passing Days is not merely an exercise in nostalgia; the EP masterfully achieves a balance between messy cacophony and jagged punk rock melody, finding the equilibrium between noise and harmony. 

"With a gritty and energetic attitude, Lung Letters proves that punk rock is still alive and thriving in Austin." - Super Secret Records

When: Saturday, December 9th at The Lost Well & Saturday, January 19th at The North Door

The Midnight Stroll

Photo Credit: The Midnight Stroll Facebook

Aaron Behrens, one-half of the brains behind The Midnight Stroll, certainly knows his way around the local Austin music scene. Having spent the last decade fronting the immensely popular EDM duo Ghostland Observatory, Behrens has established himself as something of a party master, a barnstormer whose aerobatics consist not of soaring Red Barons and Blue Angels but of massive, festival-bound synths and pulsating drums. But now, with The Midnight Stroll, Behrens has stepped away from the various -palooza's of America and resolved to create more sophisticated, noisy pop ostensibly indebted to the moody 80s cannon: Jesus and the Mary Chain, Joy Division, and The Wake all make appearances in a self-description posted on the band's Facebook page. But it'd be lazy to consider The Midnight Stroll a direct extension of 80s gloom. Instead, Western Static, the band's newest LP, sounds redolent of New York during the early aughts; one can hear the razor-edged cool of The Strokes, the intricate melodies of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and the danceable jaggedness of The Rapture throughout the LP. A mature step forward for Behrens. 

"Heartbreak Bugaloo moves everything forward while still on the brink of frantic instability." - The Austin Chronicle

The Dumpies

Photo Credit: The Dumpies Bandcamp

True to punk fashion, three out of the seven tracks on The Dumpies' newest EP,  Mark Spitz, don't even hit the one-minute mark, and the other four don't even approach the two. Indeed, Mark Spitz is a ferocious listen but it is also a playful one, its bursts of hardcore fury punctuated by indelible punk rock melody and twee speediness. Like a band booked to play an anarchist's pool party, The Dumpies careen from anthemic, beer-soaked chant-a-longs ("Slow Bleed," "Moosh") to pithy DIY salvos ("Antioch," "We Had a Deal"). By juxtaposing recreation with discipline, The Dumpies blend two opposing worlds of punk into a new animal: an unlikely marriage between the boyish mischief of punk rock and the trenchant moralism of hardcore. Mark Spitz, with its snot-nosed catchiness, marks the arrival of a promising new local punk act, one who's not afraid to take a leap forward. 

"The Dumpies is a garage band that sounds like they have something to sing about." - Austin.com

Jana Horn

Photo Credit: Jana Horn Facebook

There's a hushed intimacy to Jana Horn's music that seeks to bridge the gap between listener and songwriter. Even when she performed under the moniker Reservations in 2013, Horn's songs sought to communicate with their audiences. Reservations was one of those rare bands that felt like you had personally known since birth. Today, she maintains this connection with listeners as a solo artist. On "Optimism," an exceptional single posted to her Bandcamp page, she softly ponders the unusual behavior of a close somebody: "Asking you what's on your mind/ can't tell if you're quiet or tired." She sounds plaintive and hopeful at once, as if the evening's unspoken tension will soon dissipate—a minor lover's quarrel rendered meaningless by a good night's sleep. Much of the beauty here lies in Horn's voice, a honeyed warble that runs through octaves and gamuts like nobody's business. Of course, her gentle disposition will garner comparisons to other songwriters in Austin's thriving DIY scene—Hannah Read and Caroline Salle come to mind—but Horn's ability to dissolve the walls between artist and audience goes unrivaled in the local community.

When: Saturday, November 18th at Cheer Up Charlies