Show Review: Beach Fossils @ Red7 (4/17)

After running all over town during SXSW, Beach Fossils made it back to Austin for a much anticipated set over at Red 7. 

They were supported by a couple of great Austin bands, which hopefully garnered those acts some more love from the Austin crowd.

Click through…

Low Times were up first, and boy have they improved as a live act.  They’re one of the stronger traditional psych acts in town, melding that with bits of inspiration from the punk spectrum.  A few new tunes popped up in their set; they sounded incredible, even including some hooks that shoukd keep you all salivating.  But, for the most part they just banged out their older tunes from their self-titled debut.  I can promise you this, in a short time, these guys are going to be one of the most popular, deservedly so, acts in town. Honestly, the set from Foreign Mothers was really short.  I caught the first few tracks, which were just darkened garage rock tracks by the female three piece, then stepped outside to partake in damaging pasttimes, but came back literally a few minutes later to find the band packing up their gear.  Not bad, but would really liked to have seen more.

I think my perception of Beach Fossils might be a bit amiss, and I don’t blame the band entirely, if at all.  The first time I saw the act, it was just Dustin by himself.  The music was definitely interesting, but I always felt that it need an extra touch to it, something deeper.  Now, three years on, the sound of the band definitely has improved, providing much more of an energetic show, as will happen when the lead singer can step out into the crowd as Dustin did with “Clash the Truth,” bouncing about frantically with the swelling Austin crowd.  They moved right into several other tracks off their recent effort, but for me, something  just seemed off with the vocals.  I appreciate the recording process that gives the voice that drifting quality, but it went back and forth between that haze and pure clarity.  Clearly, this isn’t the band’s fault, as they don’t control that factor.  When they played some hits off What a Pleasure the temperature went up several degrees, with bodies dancing around, arms flailing and all that that entails as Austin went into full on party mode.  I love the band, and I thought their performance was great…just a few sound issues.

More pics at the photo site…