Shallowater

One Liner: WEST TEXAS DIRTGAZE
Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but Brooklyn Vegan said "slowcore, post-rock, alt-country, ’90s alt-rock and emo" which is quite a lot.
Home: Houston

Poster Position: Bottom Quarter - Line 26
Day: Saturday
Weekend Two Only.

T-Mobile Stage at 12:45.

Thoughts:  Shallowater, Texas is a tiny town with less than 3,000 people up near Lubbock, Texas.  However, this is a Houston band who called their music West Texas dirtgaze.  I really like that description, because I'm hearing some shoegazey sort of elements, but also some grimy, dirty rock and roll as well.  Like, if Neil Young asked Hotline TNT to back him up on some new tunes his nephew had written.

According to one website, the band is actually from Lubbock, but is just based in Houston now.  I can't tell if they met at Tech or not, but I now know that they are Skipper (vocals), Tristan (bass) and Ryan (drums).  And listening is very simple because they only have a 2024 album and then one single that is an acoustic version of one song from the album.  So, you won't get bogged down by too many tunes here!

The top track, unsurprisingly, is the one that was later made into an acoustic version.  "Angels" fires up 263k streams.

Opening lines just draw me right in - "when I woke up from dreaming / all I saw was clay / windshield is useless / on a day like today."  Did he wake up in the passenger seat during a foul west Texas storm?  And the guitar solo in the midst of it, where the song opens up and blooms into something louder and larger and livelier, is delicious.  And the final line throwback to classic country from Kitty Wells.  The title song sounds kind of like butt, but otherwise this is a good disc.

Oh, they literally released a new song since I started listening to these guys yesterday.  Maybe I was the first person in the history of the world to listen to it.  You can't guarantee I wasn't.  "Highway" comes on very quiet and chill, and, as with many of these songs, ramps up to a fire.  "Birdshot" is the second-most streamed though, with a raucous guitar line to fire up any listener.  171k streams.

Fascinating way to start an entire album - "here is some music that is so quiet you may be unsure if you hit play! Oh, no, wait, now let's melt faces!"  Too bad they are weekend two only, because I'd sign up to see it happen in person.