Austin's the Strange Boys debuted last year with The Strange Boys and Girls Club, a play-it-loose collection of twangy garage tunes suited for pool hall scuffles. It was an album content to play well within a defined set of parameters and found them tinkering with rockabilly, 1960s R&B, and British Invasion rock. It's easy to imagine the Strange Boys could churn out sets of these half-drunk shakers forever, and considering how well they did pull it off, that seemed like something to look forward to.
But follow-up album Be Brave isn't Girls Club II. It's far less boisterous, unafraid to slow things down and let the band stretch out a little. Though still alive with rambling charm, loneliness hangs over much of album, nurturing a more introspective feel. "Life changed on you again," frontman Ryan Sambol mentions at the beginning of "A Walk on the Bleach", in his unmistakable early Dylan yowl. And indeed, something seems to have changed for the Strange Boys, as they no longer have a need to get their Ya-Yas out on every track. Be Brave is a cleaner, more mature look, peppered with feelings of unease and imparting a greater focus on country, blues, and a little balladeering.
Most of Be Brave is marked by mid-tempo numbers that give the band a little space to play around with rootsier incarnations that favor bits of organ, piano, and plenty of twangy guitar. The jauntier songs tend to have a woozy, communal appeal, like opener "I See" or the saloon-piano accented "Da Da". Fans of Girls Club will find joy in the title track, a thrilling little slice of twist-inducing primal R&B (augmented by a warped sax break, courtesy of the now-disbanded Mika Miko's Jenna Thornhill). But the majority of the album takes on a different shape, taking great care to show some restraint even when it seems unnatural.
The Strange Boys have proved to be great attention-grabbers but seem a little lost when things get too quiet. The three acoustic ballads that round out the album are a little dull, and the Boys' cautious pacing doesn't always hold up to close listening. A lot of these moments leave you feeling antsy, with hope that another one of their deranged sock-hop jams might be lurking somewhere around the corner. But the key to Be Brave is allowing the band to dig around, and the rewards-- while occasionally a little slow in coming-- reveal that the Strange Boys can offer more than just a quick fix. For a band formerly so brash and unhinged, it's a bold look in its own way.
