Every now and then a band comes along to remind that if you’re looking for it to make sense, sometimes you’re the one with the problem. Granted, Austin’s ST 37 are passed the 30-year mark in offering said reminder, so I don’t necessarily know if “comes along” is the right phrase so much as “was already there,” but you get the point.

With an amalgam of freaked-out noisy punk and even more freaked-out psychedelic freakouts, improv-style and otherwise — there’s time for a little bit of everything in the 14-minute “KBDP,” nestled into side C of the 2LP as it is, let alone anything else in the record’s total 12 tracks/79 minutes — the vibe swings way, way open quickly as the jangly “War Fever” fuzz-grooves its way into a wash with a swath of voices and a deceptively playful bouncing rhythm, some sax, and echoing noise, eerie whispers and pretty much whatever else you want to hear in it. From there, it’s headfirst into the swirling made-up-on-the-spot “Shaper of Worlds” and the massive, organ-led eight-minute linear build of the Elegant Doormats cover “Grey Area,” before another cover, this one of The Vast Majority‘s “Hollywood Cemetery,” adds early-punk fervor to the proceedings.

The grounding effect of that cover, plenty swirling though it is, isn’t to be understated. It’s a kind of structural variety throughout ST 37 that speaks to the narrative circumstance of the album’s making, with recordings begun in 2015 and finished last year after a month-long tour with Japanese weirdo-legends Acid Mothers Temple. Not that ST 37were exactly hurting for doing-whatever-the-hell-they-want anyway, but there’s an inspired spark behind the drifting rhythm and soaking wet overlaid lead guitar on “Shadesty,” as well as the manic laughter peppered into the later “Rooster Feather Paycheck,” and the tension of the repetitions in “Boss” that give way to the sleepy nine-minute improv “Inward, Please” speak to a will to throw the listener off-course that makes ST 37 both a challenge and an enjoyable listening experience.

In its makeup as well as its runtime, in the horror-surf harmonica of “Snootle y Choobs,” in the maybe-everything’s-backwards “Vengeance of Faces” and the space-consuming resolve of closer “Informed by Death,” there’s a refusal on the part of ST 37 to compromise with itself, and that gives it both an overarching sincerity of expression and a sheen of hypercool that’s an immediate weedout for lighter-weight heads. Real deal noise. You can try not to pass out, but I’m not entirely sure that isn’t the whole idea anyway.

ST 37 came out in late July on Super Secret Records, and I’ve got the privilege of hosting a premiere for the video of “War Fever,” which makes its statement pretty plain in the grainy news footage from a variety of military conflicts — so many to choose from! Interspersed with some live footage of the band in its final minute — you can see founding bassist Scott Telles in the midst of all that churning fluidity — it’s a fitting-enough representation for the track, though as noted above, that’s only the beginning of what the album soon unfurls.

PR wire info follows the clip below. Please enjoy:

ST 37, “War Fever” official video premiere

Super Secret Records proudly presents the new ST 37 double album (following up last year’s 12″ split with Acid Mothers Temple on our subsidiary label Self Sabotage Records).

After playing 30 shows in 31 days all over the US and Canada with Acid Mothers Temple in 2015, ST 37 felt an immediate need to decamp for Ohm Studios to capture some shit-hot lightning in a bottle with Chico Jones at the helm in an attempt to translate the incredible energy that was exchanged between these two psychedelic juggernauts as they battled their way across North America. It seemed as if the Japanese sonic wizards and the Texas space rockers were rubbing off on each other: AMT guitarist Makoto Kawabata guested live several times with ST 37 on the Twin Peaks cover “Just You” and the bands made immediate plans to issue a TP-themed split 12″ 45 with AMT’s version of “Sycamore Trees” (Self Sabotage Records SS-08); AMT bassist Atsushi Tsuyama found himself channeling ST 37 bassist Scott Telles’s lyrics onstage at the Mercury Lounge in Mahattan; and Telles suddenly started adopting Mitsuru Tabata’s idiosyncratic vocal style.

Thus: a band changed translates this newfound energy into a brand new double LP and CD, three years in the making from the initial basic tracks at Ohm through more sessions with Evan Kleinecke at 5th St. Studios to numerous efforts at various band members’ home studios. The new eponymously-titled record is in effect both current (new songs like War Fever, Boss and Shadesty) and timeless, as the band explores its roots with tracks like Houston punk chestnut Hollywood Cemetery and the old Elegant Doormats classic Grey Area.

ST 37 is available on 2xLP vinyl, CD and download on July 27th, 2018 via Super Secret Records.

Bobby Baker – guitars, synare
Bob Bechtol – electronics, tapes, backing vox
Lisa Cameron – drums, percussives, electronics
Joel Crutcher – guitars, lead vox on “Informed By Death”
SL Telles – bass, vox, drones
Matthew Turner – guitars, electronics, tapes
Chris “Sauce” Sorrentino – saxophone on “War Fever”
Michael Chamy – electronics on “Shaper of Worlds” and “Vengeance of Faces”
Kirk Laktas – piano on “Shadesty”
Walter Daniels – harmonica on ” Snootle y Choobs”

ST 37 on Thee Facebooks

ST 37 website

ST 37 at Super Secret Records webstore