Spacetruck - Night Rider

Name: Spacetruck
Album: Night Rider
Year: 2003
Style: Indie-Psych
Similar Bands: Redd Kross, French Kicks, Pavement, Soul Asylum
"One-Word" Review: slacker psych rock
Based Out Of: Austin TX
Label: Brachiator Records

Cover & Back

Gatefold, CD Case Back, CD 

Night Rider (2003)

1. The Descent 6:00
2. The Destroyer 3:48
3. Ballad of Sadie Pryor 4:18
4. Pop Queen 4:56
5. Inner St8 5:06
6. New York City Day Dream 4:30
7. Don't Lie to Jesus 6:17
8. Odessa 1:16
9. Rollaway 9:32

Album Rating (1-10): 7.5 

Members & Other Bands:

• Chris "Frenchy" Smith - Producer, Keys, Piano, Mixing, Engineer (Sixteen Deluxe, Young Heart Attack, Dumptruck, Adrenaline Factor, Jet, Speak, The Answer, ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead, Neal Mehta, Graveltooth, Li'l Cap'n Travis, Mankin, Beth Hart, The Pocket Symponies, Lower Crass Brats, Ringo Deathstarr, Meat Puppets, Thrill Theory, Jackie Venson) 
• Chris Howard - Bass, Vox (Big Breakfast ATX)
• Kyle Hunt - Guitar, Keys, Lap, Steel (The Black Angels, 1986, Ghost of the Russian Empire, Roky Erickson, My Jerusalem)
• Will Rhodes - Guitar, Vox, Keys ('Til We're Blue of Destroy, Andrew Duplantis & Unfaithfuls, Big Breakfast ATX, Sounds Del Mar, Heartless Bastards)
• Cam Rogers - Drums, Vox (Big Breakfast ATX)
• Saxman Ran (Randal Sanden Jr) - Sax (Big Breakfast ATX)
• Tyler Van Aken - Engineer
• Alex Lyon - Asst Engineer
• Jimmy Burdine - Mastering
• Allen Crider - Mastering
• Factor 27 - Design

Unknown-ness: Never heard of this band. But with the truck name & imagery, year, track names, and recording in Austin TX, i'm going to predict this to be basic bro-y college rock with the influence of country throughout the album.

Album Review: The music feels accomplished: not simply indie garage band fodder that's forgotton a couple years in the future. There are psychedelic & organ tones balanced with some high kicking Detroit RnR. Even "Pop Queen" is trying to sound like Lou Reed / Velvet Underground. They throw some sax and slow the tempo down for "NYC Day Dream" to add some depth to a song with a fun chorus. The short Odessa is also slow, but is much more a country instrumental than anything else on the record.

Not much about this band out there...a couple supporting tours to major acts like Wilco and Tragically Hip right before this record came out. There is enough depth to the album to show they had promise. Most famous from the group is the producer & multi-faceted Chris Frenchy Smith, who produced some big name aughts bands (Toadies, And You Will Know Us By.., Built to Spill, Meat Puppets).

Stand Out Track: Destroyer

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