ACL Fest Sunday Reviews

White Denim

White Denim slips along the edges of definition. The local trio's debut LP, Exposion, drifts in and out of focus between the convulsive post-punk throbbing on 2007's Let's Talk About It EP ("Shake Shake Shake") and more Animal Collective-esque strawberry jams ("Migration Wind"). Only "Heart From Us All" successfully balances the two extremes, with tangents into soulful garage rock ("Transparency"), shoegazed romanticism ("You Can't Say"), and off-kilter piano pop ("Sitting"). Self-recorded in drummer Joshua Block's 1940s Spartan trailer, the album ripples with playful studio experimentation, such as unraveling instrumental "WDA" and the effects-laden percussive collage that closes standout "IEIEI." "Don't Look That Way at It" springs like a jack out of the box, with singer James Petralli quivering over looped layers of scribbled guitar, while "All You Really Have to Do" sounds like an outtake from Jimi Hendrix sessions backing Little Richard. Exposion is difficult to define but impossible to deny. (6:30pm, Austin Ventures stage.)