Evil Triplet - Otherworld (2017)

"Don't forget to leave your world behind," croons Steve Marsh on "Star Ladder," lead-off track on Evil Triplet's debut album Otherworld. A fitting demand since the local trio wastes no time in shooting off into a similar orbit as fellow Austin travelers ST 37 and the Boxing Lesson. The band's power space rock punches all the right buttons: distortion, winding melodies, propulsive rhythms, astronautical lyrics, whooshing electronics – even the occasional Middle Eastern lift. Marsh's psychedelic immersion may come as a shock to punk historians who associate him with Terminal Mind, one of ATX's first and finest punk/New Wave bands. Yet the singer/guitarist explored outré music in New York mind expansions Miracle Room and Wisdom Tooth, while his rhythm section draws membership from My Education and Primordial Undermind. In other words, Otherworld isn't the radical break it might first appear. Marsh and company invest wholly here, soaring through the spaced-out "Pyramids" and romping through the cosmic slop of "Post Group Date Scene" as if acid has run in their veins since birth. Space was always the place.