High Tension Wires - Welcome New Machine - New LP

NEW. DIRTNAP RECORDS. 3rd album from Dirtnap Records North Texas super-group!

The current lineup of High Tension Wires features Mike Wiebe (Riverboat Gamblers), Mark Ryan (Marked Men/Mind Spiders), Chris Pulliam (The Reds), plus Daniel Fried and Greg Rutherford (both of the just-signed-to-Dirtnap The Bad Sports, the live incarnation of The Mind Spiders, and way too many other Denton bands to mention). Past lineups have included Jeff Burke and Mike Throneberry of The Marked Men.

2011 brings us Welcome New Machine, a perfect synthesis of their previous 2 albums. Rocks as hard as Send A Message, while incorporating the nuances they began developing on Midnight Cashier.

A fair amount of ground is covered here, from the Marked Men's trademark choppy pop sound to straightforward punk, to darker-edged post-punk, and an absolutely stunning Teengenerate-style garagepunk ripper sung by Mark Ryan, all capped off by Mike Wiebe's seemingly endless font of unusual, interesting lyrics.