Noble Creatures

Using country, punk, Tex-Mex, southern rock, zydeco, and jam-band slackitude as their ingredients, Austin’s Gourds having been brewing up a tasty musical gumbo for some time, all the while staying likeably modest and un-self-serious. They’re famous for their rowdy, tipsy live shows, which is why it’s surprising to find so many ballads on their latest: three, in fact, at least two of which — the uncharacteristically direct and soulful “Promenade” and the aching “Steeple Full of Swallows”— are among the finest work this band has ever done. But never fear, they’re not going soft, much less somber. Witness the marriage of a tinkling mandolin and raucous Muscle Shoals horns in the rollicking dance number “How Will You Shine,” or Claude Bernard’s shimmering organ work on the ‘70s-vibed “Kicks In the Sun,” a song The Band would be proud to call its own. And it wouldn’t be the Gourds without lyrics like “Only in horniness will we prevail,” from “The Gyroscopic,” or “Heaven’s radio makes a sound like a brown banjo,” from “Cranky Mulatto.” Longnecks and Dada, cartoons and cowbells: yep, it’s another Gourds record, and that’s cause for celebration indeed.