Sound Team

Related Content

• Homeless hotspots at South By Southwest fest: Fallout from an awful idea
  March 13, 2012
• Mondo waves Jamaican flag for repeat win on Project Runway All Stars
  February 24, 2012
• Project Runway All Stars finale (part one) leaves viewers in suspense
  March 16, 2012
• Runway rundown: A recap of last night's Project Runway All Stars
  January 13, 2012
• Bruce Benson making bad CU tuition hike PR worse by via failed spin control?
  March 12, 2012

More About

• Arcade Fire
• Matt Oliver
• Bill Baird
• Austin
• Concerts and Tour Dates

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Originally a four-track recording project between guitarist Matt Oliver and bassist Bill Baird, Austin's Sound Team now rolls six deep. The additional membership gives the band a great deal of latitude with regard to sound and texture. Surprisingly, with a half-dozen instruments vying for space, there's not a wasted or overindulgent moment on Movie Monster, the group's major-label debut. The guitars snap and whirr on the pounding "Your Eyes Are Liars," while a battery of keyboards (Wurlitzer, Rhodes, and Moog) play various roles throughout, blowing haze over "Afterglow Years," providing buoyant counterpoints to "No More Birthdays" and heightening the resignation of the title track. The band has opened for the Arcade Fire and the Walkmen in the past, and both provide entry points into its music, which incorporates the emotional intensity of the former and the anthemic tendencies and raspy vocals of the latter. The album's highlight, though, is "TV Torso," which is easily the most exciting slice of indie rock since !!!'s "Me and Giuliani" (or the Arcade Fire's "Neighborhood #3").