Pitchfork

I'm sending you a parallel-ogram: Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is a heart-barfing amalgam of influences and mimicry (Scorsese, Cassavetes, and every other titan) whose looming maturity promises a masterpiece. Western Keys frontman Ben Dickey is also a heart-barfing amalgam of influences and mimicry (Oberst, Brock, and every other titan) whose looming maturity promises a masterpiece. Anderson's recent relationship-centric film Punch Drunk Love manages to be overwrought as it underreaches, but it also offers a zesty acknowledgement of the mysteries we are to ourselves. Dickey's new relationship-centric Damage EP also under-overs, but the project is in sore need of mystery.

Hailing from Austin, Texas, where the self-mythologizing scene was supposed to be bifurcated into the dusty middle-aged singer/songwriter in a button-up shirt camp and the Roky Erickson/Daniel Johnston amenable-nutjob/aberration-prodigy camp, Western Keys is an exciting proposition, the rare nephew of Uncle Tupelo that propels rather than deflates. The four-piece band's debut throws down a warm, seven-track country-then-rock-then-punk-then-pop sampler, a gourmet smorgasbord crammed into a kindergarten snack pack. Homesick keyboards lead into humbly exquisite brush drums. Meandering steel guitars give way to slaughterhouse indie-rock solos (this whisper/kaboom tactic makes "Driver Denies" one of the top sneak-up-on-you jams of the season). Think heavy-pastoral. Think rock-out-with-your-flock-out.

But hell, who are these people? Are they R.E.M. getting carjacked by Yo La Tengo outside of a That Dog yard sale ("Become You")? Are they the keepers of the Desaparecidos' missing track ("Please Rock")? Are they Appendix Out's warbly asses premeditating their quivers-n-mumbles-n-wails, but grounded in love-doom ("Free")? Are they a dumber, pre-pubescent Jonathan Richman crooning about how "all my friends/ And my best friend/ Sleeps with all my fucking girlfriends," as if the line were a comedically earnest epic message of global insight ("Laughter")? Or is this just Pinkerton-era Weezer and pouty Matt Pond PA teaming up in a suburban basement?

Tread patiently: Dickey's voice is initially unforgivable on the leadoff track, so torture-posed and nasal that Drainage seemed like a better title, and the shimmer/crunch production suggested that the dread genre of emo-fi was being born. Very soon, though, Dickey gets to yellin' and the band gets to shining-- not that they entirely shed their sense of preciousness. One could argue that Damage is juvenile and microcosmic in the best way, but these folks could use some more expansive lyrics to avoid seeming mired in prolonged adolescence. "I don't love you anymore" this and "it's over" that, Western Keys could apply its impressively shrugged-off harmonies to more than emotional dandruff. Dickey's band perpetuates the conundrum of the Americana: does that word connote music that is vast/universal or solipsistic/self-interested? Probably both, if that genre includes both Bob Dylan and Ryan Adams. Let's hope Western Keys evolves beyond their awkward Kirk Cameron stage fast, because they might be onto something big.