Silverada - Silverada (2024) Hi-Res

“Mike and the Moonpies” sounds exactly like the name of the band Mike Harmeier once founded – working hard in and around Austin, playing hours worth of covers while trying to sneak in as many originals as they could. After a while, those originals started to click with listeners, and Harmeier and his band began filling rooms across America (and beyond) with their own updated take on traditional Texas country music. With the release of their ninth album approaching, Harmeier decided that a new name was in order. Silverada, the self-titled “debut” record of the re-branded Texas quintet, contains all of the storytelling that fans loved about the old Moonpies while pushing their sound in a more expansive direction.

The trip the band has taken is explored on the album’s first track. “Radio Wave” begins with acoustic guitar and pedal steel before evolving into a full-on country rocker, with Harmeier reflecting on his songwriting origins – “Lyrics drawn on paper planes/Melodies and sweet refrains/I’m sifting through the old remains of who I used to be” – while also swearing his allegiance to old-school country – “Americana is a myth I told ya.” Follow-up “Anywhere But Here” has all the twang you could ask for, with pedal steel (from Zachary Moulton) and organ (with guest Daniel Davis) backstopping the track’s heartland sentiments – “I’m still living on a two-lane road/That takes me anywhere I wanna go.”

“Eagle Rare” is one of the tunes on Silverada that indicates a new direction for the band. While the subjects (fake country singers and a favored brand of bourbon) aren’t new, the cosmic, improvised jam in the middle of the song, led by a swirl of guitars from Catlin Rutherford, exemplifies the bigger sound and wide-open attitude that Harmeier is after. “Wallflower” is a propulsive, futuristic-in-an-80s-way rocker that serves as an unabashed pick-up song – “I got a short list of some sweet names, ‘cause I don’t know what to call ya/I’m begging for it now” – and climaxes in a fiery pedal steel solo.

Silverada does contain plenty of nods to old-school country sounds. “Stay By My Side” is an imbiber’s lament – “When I give up the music, I’ll give up the drinking/Like I gave up the powder in the spring of ‘05” – that promises abstinence when the road stops a-callin’ (and contains stellar Dobro work from Moulton). And “Something I’m Working On,” featuring guest vocals from Brett Cobb, portrays that particular Southern character who chooses not to think beyond his own situation – “I’ve got a right now point of view/And right now I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” Album wrapper “Hell Bent for Leather,” though, has Harmeier and the erstwhile Moonpies looking at their own future, both sonically (after an acoustic intro, the song becomes a full-band ramble, complete with synthesizers) and lyrically – “I have come to face the truth/I forgot to pack my parachute/Now I’m bursting into flames and going down.” The song concludes with a two-minute, full-on jam of guitars, pedal steel and spaced-out synths, pushing the newly dubbed Silverada toward a new horizon, one full of possibilities for the direction of country music.

Song I Can’t Wait to Hear Live: “Load Out” – this mid-tempo ambler, full of accordion (from Justin Soto) and Dobro, is a tribute to the road warrior days of Mike and the Moonpies – “I’m only here for a day or two/I’m only here because of you/And someone somewhere else tomorrow night” – as that road stretches on for Silverada.