Texas Textbooks’ “Birds” is a warm, twangy, surprisingly smart album just right for summer 2021. The band’s staunch localism, which might have been off putting in a less welcoming package, instead provides a solid roadmap for songs to please listeners in and out of Bat City.

To be sure, this is an Austin album almost to excess — Texas Textbooks’ love of their hometown is explicit. Seriously, there’s a whole song just called “Grackle,” ending with a Floydian cacophony familiar to anyone who’s ever put away groceries under a treefull of those loud bird bastards. It’s baked into the music, too. Influence from Spoon, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead and even Fastball is clear in the musical choices made. It’s never dull or samey, however. Textbooks’ composition is pleasantly dense, jangly countrified pop (they say “twangcore” but we’re not absolutely persuaded that’s a thing) with bracing shots of samples and shimmery slide guitar.

Texas Textbooks also stand out from the twangy Texas indie crowd on literary merit. Lyrics are both fun and pleasantly poetic, with a few flourishes of real beauty. Themes range from prosaic (a trip to the HEB with extensive involvement from the aforementioned birds) to enjoyably preposterous (Janis Joplin and Jorge Luis Borges just missing one another -– in fairness, both were at UT in 1961 –- at a diner off Guadalupe), but always catch the attention. Texas Textbooks avoids putting out boring, over misty-eyed meditations on failed relationships and/or the American dream, instead throwing their net wide, snagging everything from the challenges of adult friendship to a fantasia on San Antonio’s 1968 Hemisfair global exhibition. That ambition serves them well and shows a quantum leap beyond their solid debut effort “Pecos & Matamoros.”

All in all, Texas Textbooks is a must-listen for anyone invested in indie pop or the culture of the I-35 corridor. “Birds” is available now through the Texas Textbooks Bandcamp. Check ‘em out.

— Matt Salter

Danny Golden puts his heart out on a limb in his latest single, “Cigarettes and Sunburn.” The track is a cohesive blend of folky acoustic guitar, ethereal electric guitar overdubs and crisp, plaintive vocals. It’s obvious that Golden has no issue conveying emotion in his music — the pain in his voice is palpable, as he sings about an impermanent lover. Paired with his latest single is a black and white music video that perhaps symbolizes the lack of color in his life after dealing with the transience of his relationship.

Many artists come to mind while listening to “Cigarettes and Sunburn.” His tender, emotive style of singing reminds me of Fleet Foxes’ lead vocalist, Robin Pecknold, as well as Irish singer-songwriter Damien Rice. The subtlety of the instrumentation allows the vocals to really shine, while providing texture that perfectly ties the song together as a whole. The spacey, electric guitar sounds are reminiscent of Bon Iver’s self-titled sophomore album and Jeff Buckley’s classic album, “Grace.” I applaud lead guitarist Ben Brown for his minimalistic approach. There’s not a wasted note, as he fills in the space and complements Golden’s voice beautifully. Everyone associated with the making of “Cigarettes and Sunburn” deserves credit for crafting such a unified piece of music; there’s nothing extra, but every chord and note sung is impactful. 

With lyrics like “I told you I was falling and you told me not to talk/just treat it like a sunburn and let this moment be enough,” one can assume this track is about falling in love with someone, but both people know it can’t last forever and all they can do is live in the moment as much as possible. It’s clear that the narrator is having difficulty accepting this reality with lines like “You’ll go back to Paris and I’ll go back to sleep.” Sometimes love is, unfortunately, impermanent. Though you can do your best to accept that something won’t last forever, accepting this is far from easy, and I believe that’s the main message in “Cigarettes and Sunburn.”

Additionally, the music video contributes to the song’s overall melancholy. It is shot in black and white, which seems fitting given the relatively bleak, colorless mood of the song. Golden appears to be singing to a girl in the video but it never shows them actually together until the end, presumably depicting a memory.

Simply put, “Cigarettes and Sunburn” is a beautiful piece of music. Golden’s voice and lyrics serve as the driving force of the song, but the understated instrumentation allows this to happen. Not to mention, the music video itself could stand alone as an aesthetically pleasing, expressive form of art. Danny Golden’s latest single hits on all cylinders and we should all be excited about his future releases.

– Quinn Donoghue