On Friday, The Grotto (517 University Dr., 817-882-9331) will host one of the coolest shows all year anywhere. It’s co-headlined by Cleanup, the math-rocking Fort Worth trio that we’ve been praising for eons, and Megafauna, an Austin threesome that wonderfully blends prog with grunge.
As great as they and openers Elegant Avalanche are, I really want you to pay attention to the second band. I’m not quite sure where Trái Bơ is technically from (parts of Dallas, Arlington, and the Fort, Facebook seems to indicate), but who cares. Adam Sewell, Jordan Bell, Taylor King, Ben Nelson, and Daniel Estrada aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary –– on the surface. It’s just guitars and drums. Just like it was back in 1954. But, damn, these guys can play and write. The band’s debut album, the live studio recording Sigil, is loaded with serpentine, reticulated passages that may change direction suddenly but never sound out of place or shoehorned in. The structures of the material are almost orchestral or jazzy in their dynamism. What makes them even tastier (especially to a sad sack like me) is the melancholia that seems to hang over every note. The bittersweet heartache is manifest in the music, sure. The breakdown in “Symphonic People” swings from contemplative to rocking to back again without coming off as merely masturbatory. It’s just a trip, a short but wild, early Steely Dan-inspired one. Same goes for “Liebegeist,” a hollow, haunting four and a half minutes of softly clicking rim shots and airy vocals shot through with explosions of coarse guitars and grief-stricken shouting (with a sprawling coda that begins the next song, the Pavementian “I Can Make Caulk Out of Most Anything”). But Trái Bơ’s lyrics also luxuriate in the blue mood. Even excepting the obviously morose “Mary Todd Lincoln,” which is about, well, President Lincoln’s assassination, Sigil burns with disconnection and irresolution. “It’s true,” frontman Sewell sings on “Chain Link Fence,” a jittery yet oddly smooth jaunt, “We are / Already a number / One by one / Stacking us up / While you rattle the chain link fence.” In “Liebegeist,” he cries, “It’s like The Grudge / But instead of hate / It’s love.”
Trái Bơ formed, effectively, by accident. Sewell had booked a show at Shipping & Receiving during the Near Southside venue’s relatively recent opening celebrations but didn’t have a band. With only about 30 days to practice, he pulled it off with help from King and Bell. Not long afterward, the guys recorded the album at Horce Force Studio, their rehearsal space in Arlington. “The quickness of production was to ensure an easy, low-stress, and simple recording,” King said, “so we did it there and mixed it at our houses.”
Trái Bơ is writing and recording new material to release later this year as Jackie Chan Overdrive. “We’ve been listening to a lot of different music for inspiration,” King said, “Sun Ra, Steely Dan, Stereolab, pretty much just ‘S’ artists.”
There may be no shortage of tight bands in town and certainly no shortage of indie-rock outfits, but a tight indie-rock act in the spirit of Pavement (and The Fiery Furnaces and early Grandaddy) like Trái Bơ is a welcome rarity. Cover is $5.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
