TCB

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Climbing the Walls

With frontman Mike Wiebe again doing his best Spider-Man impression, the Riverboat Gamblers offered an explosive preview of their new Volcom album, as yet untitled and due in April, last Tuesday at Emo's to kick-start another week of first-class local shows. The Arm and Crash Gallery's opening post-punk diorama, the former torn and frayed, the latter sleek and seamless, was excellent. So was Thursday at Stubb's, where roots was the new indie: Brothers & Sisters butting Bright Eyes against the Mamas & the Papas; the Black conjuring the Band; and Knife in the Water, gone too long but meticulously paced and gorgeously forlorn (welcome back). Saturday, Lomita began the sold-out Ghostland Observatory CD release at the Ritz with a set both cavernous and intimate, before TCB hopped over to the Parish for My Education's intricate instrumental miasma and the Black Angels' decade-warping drone. Could 2006 turn out to be even more fertile than Austin's watershed 2005? It's early yet, but there was more quality in those 31Ú2 shows than most cities see in a month.