Today was sunny, but the air was a crisp 50 degrees. Short sleeve shirts hid at home in dresser drawers. Flip flops turned into shoes and scarves hugged necks.
Even so, it wasn't too cold. There were scant shaded moments of shivering spines, but in the bright sun, the temperature was almost irrelevant.
Autumn was finally here.
Like fall, The Dead Texan's self-titled debut is a give-and-take, a neck and neck battle between warm and cold.
Of course, neither wins out-the album manages to dance serenely and satisfyingly in and out of sunlight and shade-but the tacit scuffle is utterly gratifying.
The crypto-bionically dubbed "The Six Million Dollar Sandwich" opens the record with coming-dawn string swells and sunny determination, its warmth setting the table for the rest of the album's hopeful numbers.
But the distant acoustic strums and reverb-soaked piano chords of "A Chronicle of Early Failures - Part 1" paint a much more darkly acquiescent picture.
Indeed, the bulk of The Dead Texan situates the two approaches against one another, at times forcing them to reconcile, like in part two of "Chronicle."
The swelling track's teary-eyed grandeur is overt, evoking a moment reminiscent of the overwhelming courage from some big-budget adventure film, but the emotional impact is undeniable.
