STRANGE BOYS - Be Brave

Though they have been on tour with Spoon and Deerhunter, Austin’s Strange Boys don’t fit comfortably into the indie scene. Yes, they are signed to Rough Trade in the UK, but with a resume of backing up cult R’n’B singer Mighty Hannibal and grabbing support slots with Roky Erickson, their Nuggets-styled press shots show their true allegiance to a looser, boozier, Stones-inspired version of back-to-the-basics rock’n’roll. 

What separates Strange Boys from the legion of other garage-y acts that have been cropping up in the American south and west is that they don’t go for primitive lo-fi crunch and hazy psychedelia, instead swaggering through a dozen tracks featuring the distinctive croak of lead singer Ryan Sambol (a perfect vocal fusion of both Neil Hagerty and Jennifer Herrema of Royal Trux), and most recently adding Jenna Thornhill (of the sadly departed Mika Miko) on honking sax and bg’s to the band’s ever-shifting organ-backed line-up.