The Sideshow Tragedy, from Austin, Texas, have rolled through Texarkana several times while touring, most recently for a CD release concert at Fat Jack’s a couple Sundays ago.

The band’s third album, The Sideshow Tragedy’s new, eponymous release captures the band in a rawer mode than in previous works, according to album notes.

It’s easy to see why Sideshow Tragedy chose this route for the 10-song CD, considering the energy boring straight through these bluesy, rocking songs flavored with some folk and punk panache. It’s endearing.

The trio, led by Nathan Singleton on vocals and his National Resonator guitars, has a great knack for a catchy hook, but the songs are gritty when they deal with those big, reflective themes like heaven and love.

That duality gives them a distinctive emotional touch and some degree of bare honesty buried deep inside these lyrics.

“Push the hair back from your eyes. Let me look at you one last time before I go. You could keep telling me those lies and I would believe them until I die,” Singleton sings in the tune “Cards.” Later he croons “all my cards are on the table,” and that’s a fitting description for this album, too.

The band’s rough sound is awfully tender and insightful at the same time Singleton wails to the guitar runs and crashing drums.

And they’ve done something right capturing this rawer sound. Listen to the CD after catching a Sideshow Tragedy live show and they sound nearly indistinguishable, though live the band builds an even more raucous affair through the set. They definitely know how to stir the crowd and get folks moving.

The band and Jason Buntz produced the CD, which was recorded last year at The Bubble down in Austin. Singleton names artists like Chris Whitley, Keith Richards, Leonard Cohen and Townes Van Zandt as influences on some level. Good musicians with which to find kinship.

Here’s hoping this new album helps The Sideshow Tragedy achieve a fruitful direction beneath that “cold and empty sky” Singleton sings of on the album’s best song, the rousing and haunting “Ecclesiastes.”

Sideshow Tragedy is surely a young band to keep an eye (an your ears) on.



(The album is available on CDBaby.com. More info: SideshowTragedy.com.)