Followed by Static

Austin trio Followed By Static explores a sultry, spooky netherworld inhabited by beefy reverberating throb, shambling folk-inflected melodies turned up to 12, and chaotic splashes of garage verve. Their arrangements rise and fall like a calliope horse, constrained by a circular dynamic of loud/ soft, crisp/ messy. They’re the familial descendents of The Velvet Underground. 

There’s a childlike directness to their lyrics, which are delivered with so much reverb that it sounds like singer E. Static’s fallen into a well near the intersection of Sleepy Hollow and The Jesus & Mary Chain. “You look at me so suspect, I can’t help that I’m a wreck” he intones repeatedly on “Lullaby,” a mantra that grows more ominous as the music simmers and swells around him. The drone-heavy approach is similar to that of fellow Austin-ites The Black Angels, but with less of a sweaty hothouse vibe, and more of Spacemen 3’s freewheeling garage-underbelly. The goal seems less psychedelic mind-expansion than febrile rock combustion, though they aren’t above the occasional noisy freakout. It’s simply that the vibe’s more about the thunder of a gathering storm than the explosion of an undulating groove. 

But expect a lot more melody than you’ll find in typical shoegazer adherents. They were a duo at their inception back in ’07, but the subsequent addition of organ player Scott Baltimore has brought welcome hues to the horizon line of their sound. They’ve done a bit of touring, and even made it overseas last year, but they’ve been a bit slower on the recording front, with only 2008’s 5-song Demo*lition EP, and last year’s “Lullaby” 7” single, which recycled a couple of songs from the EP. They’ve got a half-dozen other songs floating around the net (including one entitled “Steve Earle”), so there’s reason to expect some new recordings soon. —Chris Parker