Ugly Beats, the – Stars Align – New LP

The latest offering from this Texas outfit, beautiful set of jangly garage rock power pop, the guitars always cool but never distracting, all the songs driven by the rhythm, the harmonizing and the buzz of Jeanine‘s organ helping fill in the sound, the album mixed and mastered by Jim Diamond. These Austin cats obviously don't fall into the trap of taking themselves too seriously, as the chart on the back of the sleeve clearly shows, but they do know to take their time to get it down, releasing one album about every three years, the wrong practice if you want to make it big, maybe the wise one to get it right. That's what they do here, held together with commonality, totality and consistency, but also offering variety, different cuts featuring different lead vocals, tempos and feelings, the guitars, rhythm and organ changing to fit the weather of the composition, reeling and rocking, covering The Real Kids, and calling out Ramones as their alma mater, The Byrds, Buddy Holly, the Everly