THE UGLY BEATS “BRING ON THE BEATS!”

GH-1126
12" LP / CD / Digital
February 1, 2005

Get Hip proudly presents the outstanding Debut album by Austin, TX. Hottest Garage combo. Each and every beat on this platter was carefully designed to make your hips swing and your feet shake. Now you don’t have to travel to Austin, Texas to experience the off-the-hook farfisa-infected sounds of The Ugly Beats. Just drop the needle in the groove and let your feet do the rest. The heartfelt vocals and tight rhythms on all ten originals and two covers (Easybeats and dutch Outsiders killers) will be reason enough to convince you that this band is the new garage real deal!

“The Ugly Beats are one of the grooviest, slammin’est, poundin’est, wailin’est garage bands to ever come out of Texas. The consummate dance-party band began just a couple of years ago, and now has a gargantuan local following. They’re my personal favorite local band, so I see their live shows regularly. For over a year, I had been looking forward to the moment I slipped their first full-length album into the player. That moment finally came! …And I am proud to relay to you that from beginning to end, there’s not a loser on this CD.

“We’ve got it all here: crowd-pleasing clapping and chanting on “KO’d”, intense love pleas on “Don’t, Girl” (my fave? I can’t decide), a strutting organ groove with “I’ll Walk Away”, traditional hard-rocking ’60s style with “Filthy Rich”, and an unabashed rock and roll freak-out with “Girl on the Brain”. I’d tell you my favorite tracks, but each time the tracks switch, there’s another favorite in front of me. I’m biased, I know. However, there’s a few things I’d like people to pay attention to when listening to this album. First off, 10 out of the 12 songs are originals (the others are covers by ’60s bands the Easybeats and the Outsiders). They are written as a group with everyone taking full credit for the group creation. The various contributions of each member make each song full of depth and vibe. In particular, the lyrics stand out in sharp detail. I sometimes can’t make them out in live performances, and the clarity of the words on CD completely displayed the Ugly Beats’ mastery of the ’60s genre, without becoming trite. Many of these tracks also contain chord changes that are powerful and instinctive. I mean, if I told you it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it, then fantastic! That’s enough for plenty of folks to buy it. But it’s got plenty of pathos and melancholy too, making “Bring On the Beats” an unsurpassable combination for those who like to take a little think with their drink.”Caroline Gnagy, Reprise Magazine (Austin, TX)