Now that Austin has dutifully plowed through ’80s new wave, ’70s soft rock, ’60s psychedelia, and—most recently—’90s fuzz, what genre is the next to be slapped with a fresh coat of postmillennial paint? By the looks of Crooks, gen-yoo-wine country, stripped of its crossover pop sheen and returned to its hard-drinkin’, rough-and-tumble roots. Just like many of the garage revivalists in town, Crooks approaches its blood-on-the-saddle ballads with a bristling undercurrent of bleary-eyed paranoia; never have those wide-open Texas skies seemed quite so threatening.
