Four-word reviews from SXSW

So. Despite the new Twitterific agony of deadlines every 10 seconds, SXSW was very good this year. It’s getting harder to select a single “breakout” band, or even a dozen of them. Partly that’s because the festival gets bigger every year — there were 1,958 official bands this time, and who knows how many more unofficial ones — but also because the “breakout” itself was an effect of a more monolithic media era when a handful of critics and publications created a consensus.

It wasn’t an illusion, exactly: there really was a consensus. That no longer seems to be possible, although I would love for a new band to be so great that they steal the show for real. (That would also be a great excuse for getting out of the other 1,957 shows, which get tiring.)

Herewith, all the four-word reviews I wrote for the ArtsBeat blog. There were maybe 10 or 11 more bands that I either didn’t see enough of to form even four words of an opinion, or didn’t think they were worth it. Wow, the introduction to a list for four word items is nearly 200 words long.

• Daniel Francis Doyle: Spasmatic, atonal, yet precise.
• Micah P. Hinson: So pretty, twangy, relaxing.

• Gomez: Groovy ... whoa, double-kick!
• Decemberists: Want opera? Must wait.
• Crocodiles: Stylish wall of throb.
• Wavves: Another duo bashes away.
• Thermals: Sweaty; thanks for Nirvana.
• Motel Motel: Yowling, exuberant Band-isms: emocana?
• Two-Way Radio: Homely, cute. Metal disrupts.
• Shilpa Ray and Her Happy Hookers: That scream is primal!
• Department of Eagles: In church, harmonies envelop.
• St. Vincent: Graceful, ambitious. Odd banter.
• The Wheel: Stark, eloquent Cash echoes.
• The Donkeys: Mellow; sitar’s potential unrealized.
• K’Naan: Schooled me re Mogadishu.
• Dirty Projectors: Omigod omigod omigod omigod!
• Blitzen Trapper: Lo-fi Americana doesn’t translate.
• Pains of Being Pure at Heart (at Malverde): Childlike bounce brings smile.
• Pains of Being Pure at Heart (at Opal Divine’s Freehouse): Too loud; intimacy lost.
• Telepathe: Tribal futurism? Futuristic tribalism?
• The Soft Pack: Prefer former name, Muslims.
• Matt and Kim: They swear too much.
• King Khan and the Shrines: Unabashed sleaze = rock’s origin?
• Mi Ami: Tight like a fist.
• Earthless with J. Mascis: Cathartic waves of electromagnetism.
• Tinted Windows: Non-obvious supergroup actually works.
• Crystal Antlers: Overcame double-drummer skepticism.
• Silversun Pickups: Metallica opener. Shortest straw?
• Metallica: Slayed. Surprisingly, didn’t overshadow.

Next list: all the bands I didn’t get to see.