Missoula Independent from Missoula, Montana • A19

Before country music was a thinly veiled battle cry for the conservative crowd, there lived a thing called Texas Country Music, and its like Guy Clark, Steve Earle and Robert Earl about more than jacked-up trucks and cutoff jeans. They wrote songs about heartbreak and lawlessness, and they paved the way for the likes of Josh Abbott Band and their more polished, radio-ready style of Texas country. Since their first notable single, a duet with fellow Texan Kacey Musgraves, Josh Abbott Band has positioned itself as a refreshing take on old traditions in country music. In their most recent EP, Tuesday Night Abbott sings about hanging around and getting buzzed, nursing his wounds after an old departure. no new lyric ground being tilled there, but the tracks are spunky and instrument- driven.

Unlike the glossy, pop- country tunes dominating the radio with their Auto-tuned, fake Southern accents, you can tell this music is a bit more organic and probabl sounds the played live in a bar. Additionally, there are a few pleasant solos of fiddle and banjo, and while lyrics win any awards for originality, they also preach the same tired, slightly questionable refrains about tan legs in trucks and for long rides in the country. In the footsteps of the founding associated with the genre, Josh Abbott Band aims to revitalize traditional honky-tonk tropes. (Micah Fields) Josh Abbott Band plays Stage 112 July 19. Doors open at 8 PM, show at 9.

advance at ticketfly.com. The Jukebox Romantics bring me back to the summer of 1995 when Out Come the Wolves dropped and it seemed like everyone I knew tuned in. (Tupac Me Against the World was also newly on rotation in my circle, and I guess Michael HIS- tory came out that summer, too, but I hardly remember it.) Rancid made such a big bang, it kind of overshadowed everything else. The album had one foot in the mainstream and one in the underground, and people had mixed feelings about that balance. In an interview with New Noise Magazine earlier this month, The Jukebox Romantics cited Rancid, The Bouncing Souls and Alkaline Trio as favorites, and you can hear those influences in their music.

Their newest release, a four-way 7-inch split called On the Road to Pouzza offers two songs from the band: Boys Like and Walker Texas Like Rancid in 1995, they have that amped- up, UK streets-style rawness that still comes out feeling polished. like a gnarly looking beetle neatly pinned between museum but curated. (Erika Fredrickson) The Jukebox Romantics play the ZACC Below July 22, at 8 PM with VTO. $5 donation. All ages.

Jamaican Queens take part in a broad approach to music that going to call big person. Animal Collective made good use of this dynamic, as did Matt Kim and, to a lesser extent, Arcade Fire and The Beta Band. Jamaican new album Downers combines drum machines and heavy-attack synth on the low end, with singer Ryan creaky falsetto up high, and very little in between. The atmospheric tone that results is simultaneously big and sound of hiding your psychological breakdown at the club. I submit that feeling emotionally vulnerable at the party is the essence of 21 st century indie electro-pop.

The massive, deconstructed sound of Downers is like treading water in a wave the mercy of a totalizing environment that is supposed to be fun but gradually, inevitably drowns you. can feel Spencer sings on I tell you that someday gonna The achievement of Downers is to make this message pleasant, even danceable. It is true, after all. Jamaican Queens have found the worm in the apple and they are not eating around it. all nourishment to them.

(Dan Brooks) Jamaican Queens play the Palace July 23, at 9:30 PM, along with Fallow and Yeezazee. $7. Texas hold Josh Abbott Band pays tribute to tradition The Jukebox Romantics Jamaican Queens Downers missoulanews.com July 23, 2015.