No surprise to anyone who caught their recent 400 Bar gig — and certainly not to moi, who’s been raving about them since SXSW 2005 — the Heartless Bastards went over like champions Thursday afternoon at their third of six or seven gigs this week. My guess is they especially brought their A-game to this one, which was an annual SXSW benefit for musicians health services at Threadgill’s headlined by the revived Roky Erickson (backed by Okkervil River). A very Austin kind of show, in other words.

The Ohio-reared howl of a garage-rock band is now based in the Texas capital, where frontwoman Erika Wennerstrom relocated and put together an all new four-piece lineup. We can officially declare it a better lineup, too, with more muscle and energy if a little less of the bluesiness from before. Wennerstrom’s powerful, Bessie Smith-meets-PJ Harvey voice and fragile but ferocious writing style remains the star attraction, though, as they tore through the new Fat Possum album, “The Mountain,” including the standout “Out at Sea.”

Minnesotans can see the Bastards again in two weekends when they play with the Gaslight Anthem at the Varsity.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 8:27 pm and is filed under Main, SXSW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.