O Pioneers!!!

Hoarse, coarse and slavishly crude, the Texas outfit known as O Pioneers!!! might come across as a punk band at first — and, at its heart, it is — but beneath the growled aggression and blocky chords churns an artlessly artful, melancholy pulse that peels skin from flesh and pretention...

By Jason Heller

December 10, 2009

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Hoarse, coarse and slavishly crude, the Texas outfit known as O Pioneers!!! might come across as a punk band at first — and, at its heart, it is — but beneath the growled aggression and blocky chords churns an artlessly artful, melancholy pulse that peels skin from flesh and pretention from assholes. Over the course of a dozen-plus releases, O Pioneers!!! has almost single-handedly resurrected a reverence for bygone legends like Rites of Spring and Archers of Loaf in a decade in which indie-rock awareness stops at the Strokes. In other words, this is what indie was originally meant to sound, smell and feel like: too emotional to pose and too honest to stay clean.

Jason Heller is a staff writer at Westword. He's the author of the book Strange Stars: David Bowie, Pop Music, and the Decade Sci-Fi Exploded (Melville House/Penguin Random House), and has contributed to the New Yorker, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and NPR.org. His work has won a Hugo Award and a Colorado Press Association Award.

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