The debut album by the San Francisco trio
Truxton -- singer/songwriter
Hansi (
Johannes Armentrout), bassist
Lucas White, and drummer
Francis Choung (also one-third of the politicized post-rockers
From Monument to Masses) -- makes a compelling case concerning what would have happened if
Neil Young had been a struggling young singer/songwriter breaking into the California scene more than 35 years after he did.
Hansi's meandering vocals and pretty/harsh guitar style both suggest a strong
Young influence, which meshes surprisingly well with the
Dashboard Confessional-meets-
Sunny Day Real Estate emo vibe of his cohorts. It's not a stretch to imagine the predominantly acoustic and atypically poppy "Same Short Song," or even the cyclical, occasionally abrasive "Let the Bullets Fly," on a
Buffalo Springfield album, and that pop sensibility anchors even otherwise standard emo dirges as "Submarines." Recorded over the span of several years,
Truxton's debut hangs together surprisingly well, a testament to the fundamental solidity of
Hansi's emotional, but not overweening lyrical, stance and subtle sense of pop hooks.