Local debut albums have a way of underwhelming, as in most cases they have little to no chance of capturing the magic of a live show full of devoted fans singing along and dancing to every beat, and that’s why Spooky Folk’s self-titled first album was such a welcome surprise. Recorded in various houses around Denton, the bands freshman effort managed to capture everything that’s beautiful about the town, from the subtle beauty of “Rare Bird”, to the wild recklessness that is “Bible Belt” and to be honest, “Bible Belt” is the best song released by a Texas act this year, a energetic screed against the overbearing presence of the church in North Texas, it takes a tongue-n-cheek swipe at the overt religious themes that at times permeates through the music of some of the areas acts that came up in the church bands that rule so much of the suburbs. Spooky Folk is as Denton as Denton can get, yet it’s so polished you almost forget the album was recorded in a little one bedroom house on a side street between the two colleges.
It was the surprise success of the album that lead to a series of accolades for the group, buffeted by a series of blistering live performances that started with last years NX35 the band saw themselves on a sudden upswing, garnering multiple DOMA nominations and performing a incendiary showcase during the awards show only lead to further spreading the gospeal that was being preached by so many, namely “There’s a band you have to see live and that band is Spooky Folk.”
We look forward to what the band has in store for us in 2011, but for now we’ll just singing along, because we were also born on the Bible Belt.
