Austin Chronicle – Free Week Live Show Review

Austin’s Nine Mile Records packed both stages at Barracuda last Friday, beginning with local fivepiece Carry Illinois and the booming, brassy voice of Lizzy Lehman. Powering sleepy, twee-pop instrumentation, the singer/guitarist skewed introspective on “Shameful Feeling,” her otherwise theatrical voice hushed. “Little Shell” offered like-minded empathy, Lehman’s earnest narratives proving warm and hopeful.

Abram Shook delved into sophisticated yacht rock – bright, rhythmic, undulating. Cool and understated, his falsetto carved out a breezy, atmospheric airiness. Organs and pedal steel in the singer’s backing foursome pushed the sound from guitar rock into something more experimental. From last year’s Love at Low Speed, “Lies” offered that same pedal steel at breakneck speed.

Closers Tinnarose performed as an eightpiece complete with brass section and two fluid backup dancers in brightly colored gauze ensembles. Devon McDermott’s towering, hypnotic voice traversed a divergent set list, at times slipping into a reserved folk psychedelia conjuring Jefferson Airplane, which also accounted for a hammering, throughly explosive jam-band sound on “TamLin.”