Almost Heaven

One Liner: Another LCD Soundsystem-ish thing, but I like it
Wikipedia Genre: No Wikipedia, but this is dance pop, synth electronic
Home: Austin!

Poster Position: Bottom Quarter - Line 24
Day: Friday at 12:45 (brutal time slot)
Weekend Two Only.

Tito's Tent (fun venue though)

Thoughts: I rolled my eyes a few songs into this because it is another blatant LCD Soundsystem ripoff.  I can't even remember the name of the LCD ripoff from last year's ACL, but I remember there being one with a song about slutty girls or something.  Well, after a few songs, I stopped rolling my eyes and started boogie-ing around in my desk chair.  This is kind of fun.  But when the cowbell effect starts kicking in, I sometimes start to roll my eyes again.

An aside, based upon the name, is that I think it is extremely cool and good that "Take Me Home, Country Roads" has become an unofficial supporter song for the USMNT in the 2026 World Cup.  That song freaking rules.  Many decades ago, someone started the tradition at my summer camp that we would sing that on the first night in camp and awkwardly try to shoe-horn "Echo Valley" into the slot where the song says "West Virginia" and it felt very special at the time.

I searched Wikipedia for the band, and apparently Almost Heaven was the 10th studio album by European American pop group The Kelly Family.  The cover of that album is giving me pedo vibes.  But this is the joinder of Stefan Barraza, originally from El Paso, and Austin native and drummer Jaelyn Valero.  Barraza says he was a student at Texas Tech when his professor walked into class to give a presentation about the Graphic Design program and he was smitten with the thought.  He dropped out and started doing graphic design and video, working with a lot of musicians, but soon realized that he really didn't like some of the music he had to work with for the visuals.  So, he decided to make the kind of music he wanted to go with his visuals, and this band was born.

Some of their earliest 2022 singles have no tracked streams on Spotify, so they didn't kick the door open right there at the start.  3 EPs since then, and even though I am digging some of what they are laying down, the stream count is really not there yet.  Top track is called "FEEDBACK" with 18k streams.

I'm expecting some pretty damn good visuals to come along with this song, since the whole reason for making music was just to match the rad visuals.  He wants her to bite his arm to take something away?  She is not interested.  "fever trying to blow" with 15k streams is the second-biggest streamer.

Hear that LCD thing?  But here is the deal, I bet that song is absolutely fantastic to freak out to in a crowd of people looking to dance and have fun.  he even tried to design a dance for it.  "hypnoxia" has a similar feel, or "LOVE ON THE RUN."  "power music (elektrik revival)" had me sitting here like "wheeeeere do I know that from, dammit!" before finally blurting out OUTKAST on my third or fourth listen.  "THE GOOSE" is kind of cool in a different way, with some frenetic drumming in the middle and almost a Franz Ferdinand meets The Strokes thing.

I'd go watch.  I wonder if the skuzzy club vice will come through very well as noon on Saturday in a dusty field with like 45 people there, but a man can dream.