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A D V E R T I S E M E N T
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The Hourly Radio
Lure of the Underground
(Self-released)
By Jimmy Fowler
Young musicians have longed to be rock stars since Ed Sullivan cut Elvis off at the hips during prime time more than half a century ago. But the internet has invested the kids with the canniness and confidence of highly paid marketers: They sound ready for their audience niche before the niche has even heard them. Take Dallas-based The Hourly Radio’s aptly titled debut e.p., Lure of the Underground. With production and songwriting credits given collectively to the band’s four members, Lure is a controlled, assured pitch for the affections of emergency-siren guitar pop fans trolling new music weblinks in search of an unknown band to crow about. Relationships lost, stolen, misunderstood, and addictive are given an almost Homeric take on the seven songs here, with Ryan Short and Aaron Closson’s electric guitars loos’d to the wind to either ramble solemnly or charge with fierceness against the lyric tide of heartbreak. At times, vocalist Closson doesn’t sing so much as issue earnest recitations (“Fierce though they were / My cries went unheard / Please let them ring out”), cotton candy-dipped in lots of delay. This won’t likely repel the corporate execs who’re likely to salivate over all this; at its most melodic on the anxious alarm of “Fear of Standing Upright” and the seductive “Lost + Found,” Closson’s voice has a clear-toned, accessible sincerity that, in a pleasant change of pace, doesn’t try to ambush the listener with moody quirks. Rarely ingenious but uncommonly passionate, Lure of the Underground is bookended intriguingly by “First Love Is Forever,” a defiant holler in the thunderstorm of first heartbreak, and “Travelsigns,” a trippy rawk instrumental that would be a nice chaser for one of Steve Miller’s midnight tokes. — Jimmy Fowler
Sat with iSOLA and the Snowdonnas at Hailey’s, 122 W Mulberry St, Denton. 940-323-1159.
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