[Ex]Band of the Week: Don't Mess With Texas

[2004-2009]
Don't Mess With Texas
Sounds Like: Post-Rock
Drinking Buddies: This Will Destroy You, The Pirate Ship Quintet, pg.lost
Synopsis: Proving instrumental music is universal and eternal.
Makes You Want To...: Dream; Learn about the world; Open your mind.
Evolved Into:

• n/a
  

[Website] / [Last.fm]





This month is one of old and new.
Voilà! is featuring bands that have broken up.
This week, the featured artist is Don't Mess With Texas.


It's tough. Tough when your favourite bands have broken up. Voilà! has been doing our [Ex]Band of the Week month for two years now, and in those two years, we've shown some really great independent artists who just couldn't last. This year, we saw Los Abandoned, Something Corporate, and Arrah and the Ferns. Last year, we were entertained by the musical stylings of Test Icicles, The Blood Brothers, Pretty Girls Make Graves, and Some By Sea. These are all wonderful bands, and we aren't gossiping about their dispersing so much as we're honouring they're memory. By talking about these bands, by letting their music live on, we do honour to their memory as musicians, and give them the credit they deserved, when they were still around and in our present day.

It's important to take stock in that which has past, and to do it justice. This year, we're ending with a little group by the catchy name of Don't Mess With Texas. This mysterious quartet hails from Zagreb, Croatia. Now, Zangreb, Croatia may not exactly be the centre for music in Europe - I know folks who couldn't spot Croatia on a map. Certainly it's not easy for a small band to get started, though, you may only think that if you didn't know Don't Mess With Texas plays in the post-rock genre. For those still fishy about the genre - as the style is still extremely new, vastly unexplored, and sparingly colonized - post-rock music is generally defined by its use of extremely vast, imaginative soundscapes, instrumental compositions, with special emphasis on repetition, and a push away from lyrical composition and typical song-structures.

If you think about post-rock as a genre, and some of the more prominent figures (whether they claim the genre title or not), ponder where these bands have come from. Explosions In The Sky original hails from Midland, in west Texas; Sigur Rós from far and away in Iceland; Godspeed You! Black Emperor from the cold and rebellious Québec. All these bands come from places defined by either their independence, remoteness, or a combination of the two. What says a band from Croatia can't make some fabulous instrumental music as well?

And fabulous indeed. Comparable in quality to that of This Will Destroy You, Don't Mess With Texas presents a simple, yet powerful sound marked by repetition of chords and ethereal iimiages in sound. Their sounds range in length, but are unlimited in scope and mood. Expressing intense emotions ranging from melancholy to uplifting, Don't Mess With Texas sets themselves apart with intense focus given to their meleodies, with the added uniqueness of piano featured prominently in many of their songs. But alas, not everything can last, can it?

"We wanted to let you all know that Don’t Mess With Texas disbanded. We decided to break up and stop functioning as a band. It just didn’t feel right anymore. It makes no sense to write sagas about the break up or about the band, we just want to thank everyone that helped us in any way, it was wonderful while it lasted. Thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. Sasha, Ozren, Slobich and Neven"

The break up of Don't Mess With Texas is certainly a sad outcome. But this gives us, as listeners, even more of a responsibility to show this grand ensemble exactly how wonderful they were at making the music they created. They have two albums: their debut Don't Mess With Texas, followed by their sophomore album Los Dias De Junio. They have no Myspace, but you can listen to some of their music on Last.fm. Or, if you're more interested in ownership, you can go to Moonlee Records and purchase their albums. Show them your love, readers.