C/S is short for "con safos," which translates as "don't mess with this," and with their third studio album, the men of
Slowride -- Dan Phillips, Rob Marchant, and Steve Visneau -- treat their brand of muscular indie rock as serious business. At the controls, producer Stuart Sikes (
the White Stripes,
Jets to Brazil,
the Walkmen) helps these garage rock devotees execute command performances like "The Year of the Snake" -- a revved-up, contagious punk-inflected beast -- and the manic,
Queens of the Stone Age-like "You Can't Tell Me." The height of
Slowride's charm just may be their heartfelt, slightly desperate lyrical approach ("I need a sound from God/Louder than what I've heard so far"), but whether they're crafting direct distortion-friendly anthems like "Morals and Dogma" or blissed-out,
Beck-meets-
Pixies pop like "A New Day Is Upon Us," this Dallas trio gives fans of routinely intense, unaffected alt-rock like
Jawbreaker,
Foo Fighters, or any of the aforementioned a reason to be cheerful. ~ John D. Luerssen