BEST BET:
CENTRO-MATIC
With Great Lake Swimmers and Two Cow Garage
By Barry
Gilbert
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
April 6, 2006
8:30 p.m. April 10, 2006, at Off Broadway, 3511 Lemp Avenue. $8. 314-773-3363.
The poster boys for flying under radar have to be Centro-matic. Ten years on, this Denton, Texas, band led by singer-songwriter Will Johnson has released hundreds of songs and played hundreds of shows a year -- and still manages to remain as indie as indie-rock can get. "Fort Recovery," the band's latest album, is a bundle of happy contradictions: grungy and polished; organic and electronic; straightforward and shadowed. Like Uncle Tupelo riding a Crazy Horse, bassist Mark Hedman and drummer Matt Pence lay down bedrock rhythms over which Johnson and pianist-fiddler Scott Danborn have their way. Centro-matic is best enjoyed by simply letting the waves wash over you.