The Black Angels

Every time Anton Newcombe sings, the Black Angels get their publicity wings. The Austin-based band got a flock of press at this year's South by Southwest festival when the infamous Brian Jonestown Massacre frontman joined the band on stage for a stellar thirteen-minute-plus improvised session. It was like the goddamn '60s all over again, full of tripped-out guitar fuzz, tambourines and sonic hallucinations. Even sans Newcombe, however, the Angels are able to make the kind of psychedelic rock that sounds like it's induced by, well, heavy psychedelics. The five-piece -- drummer Stephanie Bailey, organist Jennifer Raines, bassist Nathan Ryan, guitarist Christian Bland and vocalist Alex Maas -- evokes the experimental rhythms of fellow (and much older) Texans the 13th Floor Elevators. Though the Elevators have long since come and gone, their legacy of kaleidoscopic rock has been channeled through their many descendants. But where other throwback acts have fallen into boring replication, the Angels have soared high into their own innovative skies.