Leatherbag

Kicking off with a snare sputter and bassline groove on "Start All Over Again," Leatherbag (Austin's Randy Reynolds) lays down a guiding principle that informs much of his third full-length. The opening song's title, along with lines like "I'm trying to forget everything I once knew" ("Everything I Once Knew") and anti-scene screeds like "This is not for the singer-songwriter who thinks that he's entitled to always stand at the front of the line" ("Forever Blue"), signal a quality lifer-in-the-making, supported by his self-professed exhumation of local '80s New Sincerity influences. While calming the power-pop pull of 2008's Love and Harm, the band proves tighter, and Reynolds is at his most focused and comfortable, when balancing drawled ballads ("Nothing Wrong With Love," "This Time") with clipped raucousness ("Senseless Irony").