Appearances can be quite deceiving. Whether you’re judging books by covers or attractive young ladies by their attire, it can prove difficult to discern what really and truly lies beneath the heaping dollops of sheen, veneer, and makeup. Music often becomes an even tougher sell, what with programs like Pro Tools and functions like Autotune increasing the ease with which a producer can clean up a certain sound or vocal tick, while maintaining the glossiness of the record label’s chosen look. One is never too sure whether or not the band owes more to the producer’s knob-twiddling prowess and photographer’s airbrushing know-how than to their own talent.

So, upon first glance, it is rather dubious to claim that 4 skinny-jeans-wearing indie rock kids that make up the TX-based band Hymns can actually pull off the ambitious sonic palette that their PR material claims they wield. However, multiple listens through their sophomore project Travel In Herds ably demonstrates their prowess, in that, while the group brandishes their influences boldly, the swagger is all their own. The band confidently crisscrosses the musical map with the Being There-era Wilco-styled cut “I Can’t Be What U Want,” the Petty-esque track “Blame It On The Mountain,” and the Springsteen-ish song “Streets Alone.” Yet for the tendencies to simply sound like their forebears, it is the voice of Brian Harding that sets them apart, as he resists every possible temptation to belt the lyrics out with clichéd bravado, instead breathing the lyrics with an almost-too-restrained folky whisper. While Travel In Herds might not break any new musical ground, that doesn’t make the music any less appealing to fans of catchy country-tinged folk rock.

– Adam P. Newton [March 30, 2008]

The folks @ Spin Magazine have been very nice to Hymns lately.  The fantastic review in their magazine happened to come out in the issue that was given to all 12,000 SXSW badgeholders and the Spin staff spent a bunch of quality time with the boys in Austin (see some evidence on our Videos page).  But what we are really excited about today is the list on Spin.Com of the “Best Discoveries” of SXSW 2008:

Joe Lean & The Jing, Jang, Jong
The Heavy
Anthony Green of Circa Survive solo
Hymns !!!
Flowers Forever

Now you know why we loves us some Spin - buy the mag and visit the site today!

The line-up was stellar for our second annual party on 3/15/2008:

Pleasant Grove
The A-Sides
Joseph Arthur
Hymns
The Soundtrack Of Our Lives

For further evidence, check out the videos of Joseph Arthur’s set on his official youtube page, highlights include Echo Park, In The Sun and Redemption’s Son:

http://www.youtube.com/user/josepharthurofficial

If you are anywhere close to Dallas or will be in Austin for SXSW this year, you have no choice but to see a Hymns show. The guys will be playing 9 shows between next Tuesday 3/11 and Sunday 3/16: Tuesday 3/11 5pm In-Store appearance @ Good Records in Dallas - we will supply a keg of beer and Hymns will be followed by Cloud Cult… Same day: run over to Sons of Hermann Hall @ Elm & Exposition for a trifecta of Nashville’s Pico vs. Island Trees, Hymns and Justin Townes Earle - Steve Earle’s boy! At SXSW, Hymns will be playing 2 Thursday parties, a Friday party and 2 Saturday day-parties - including: Blackland’s 2nd Annual Red Fez Party 1-6pm on Sat 3/15: Starring - 1pm Pleasant Grove 2pm The A-Sides 3pm Joseph Arthur 4pm Hymns 5pm The Soundtrack Of Our Lives With that line-up, beer and tex-mex how can you NOT be there? Hymns official SXSW Showcase on Saturday Night @ Cedar Door …and Sunday night 3/16 Hymns will return to Dallas to play Lakewood Bar and Grill with Joseph Arthur and The Teeth! If you need further details, check the tour section, but my all means see Hymns as many times as you can!!!

Blackland Records is proud to announce that Hymns will be releasing their sophomore CD - Travel in Herds - on March 11. You can hear the first single on our myspace page www.myspace.com/blacklandmusic. Stay tuned for news about the big Blackland showcase in Dallas on March 11th, upcoming hymns tour dates & all of our plans for the great SXSW music festival in Austin 3/12 - 3/16.

Hymns kick off their Summer 2007 Tour with five (5!) shows in the great state of Texas including tomorrow nights show in Austin, Saturday in Houston, two shows Sunday in Dallas and Monday night in Denton before they head west. Please see the tour section for details. And if you can make the Dallas shows, you might want to wear your indie best as a video crew will be capturing a day in the life of hymns, including the performances at Good Records and at the Double-Wide Bar. Darryl Smyers preview appearing in this weeks Dallas Observer says it better than I could: “Brother/Sister, the debut effort from New York City’s Hymns, was one of the most underrated discs of 2006. Mixing the most stable elements of Wilco, Pavement and Spoon with refreshingly light and easy folk, songs such as “Magazines,” “Scenery Glow” and “Power in the Street” are tailor-made for folks who like their alt-country on the comprehensible side. Singer Brian Harding and guitarist Jason Roberts started the band in North Carolina back in 2003, but it took a fortuitous move to the Big Apple to complete the quartet and record (in Celeste, Texas, of all places) their listener-friendly debut-not that there’s anything wrong with being easy on the ears. The foursome creates music that is concise and dynamic, engaging songs that never have to strive to be more than they are, never attempting weird for weird’s sake. Like a good pair of shoes, the music of Hymns is comfortable without the need to be cool.”

Hymns may be coming to a bar near you this summer. Matt Shaw has joined the band on bass, so get out there and see Brian, Jason, Tony and Matt throw down songs from Brother / Sister, new hymns tunes and ultra cool covers. For those of you who have been asleep at the wheel, new dates for June and July have recently been posted. You can get all the details in the tour section of this site, but some highlights include: Kicking off with (at least) 4 Texas shows / An all day party in Dallas on Sunday June 3rd, starting at Good Records with Bosque Brown and ending at Double Wide Bar with The Theater Fire / Hymns first show in Las Vegas at Divebar / Four shows in California, including a June 11th date at the legendary Viper Room in Los Angeles / Fourth of July at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ with The Redwalls / Hymns first ever show in Florida / Playing with bands such as: The Dead Trees * The Morning Pages * Melba Toast * The Redwalls * Mezzanine Owls * The Slant * Bosque Brown * The Shys * The Theater Fire * Crash the Satellite, AND MANY, MANY MORE!

They say that there is no such thing as magic. They also say that a t-shirt is just a t-shirt. I say “to hell with them”. The new Hymns shirts are a thing of beauty, with American Apparel quality, both men’s and women’s styles and…something magical about them. We may even have your favorite color, you will have to go to the store page of this website to find out.

We are finally free to announce that Hymns official SXSW Showcase will be on Friday 3/16 at Eternal (418 East Sixth Street) with amazing headliners The Faint. SESAC SHOWCASE 9:00pm Hymns 10.00pm Peter & The Wolf 11:15pm Pela 12:30am The Faint! You can find the complete “official” SXSW Schedule at www.sxsw.com

Blackland recording artists Hymns will play their first Dallas show on Thursday March 8th at the legendary Sons of Hermann Hall. Sons of Hermann has been located at the corner of Exposition and Elm since 1911. Headlining the show will be the Dallas Observer’s Musician of the Year (2005) Chris Holt with his fantastic band Olospo, one of Dallas best live acts for several years. Also playing will be Texas troubadour Matt Koger. Doors open at 8:30pm and tickets are a steal at $8 and will be available through Front Gate Tickets or at the door.

Blackland Records is very excited to announce that Hymns will return to Texas for the first time since recording their debut record at Vault Studios in Celeste. They will be playing a show in Dallas at Sons of Hermann Hall on March 8th and will be playing shows at SXSW in Austin, including an official SXSW Showcase (date, time and venue to be determined) and the Blackland day party on Friday March 16th…details to follow, get ready for some hymns Texas!

Hymns will be joining the Lemonheads on their US tour, playing 18 dates from November 24th through December 16th. Highlights include: Two shows in San Francisco *** Portland, Seattle, Boise & Salt Lake City *** The fabulous Bluebird Theatre in Denver *** Omaha & Cleveland *** Repeat visits to Detroit, Minneapolis, Philly & DC *** Repeat visit to Chicago for Two Shows *** The great city of Toronto - their first “international” show *** Irving Plaza in New York *** and the Tour Finale at Avalon in Boston. Some of these venues are on the small side and likely to sell-out, so be sure to buy your tickets and make your reservations as soon as possible.

Last night at the Knitting Factory in New York, Hymns had the honor of playing the Paste Magazine Party. ?uestlove (Drummer for The Roots) was the DJ…hem opened the show…Beck played with his full band…and Hymns closed the place down - literally!

You can now download the tunes from Brother/Sister by Hymns on itunes and most any other “legal” download service…so go check it out, you can even write your own review!

Hymns ended their first tour Sunday night in Boston with a rousing final encore. Ben Kweller brought the members of Sam Roberts Band and Hymns up on stage for a cover of Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone” with BK, SR and Brian Harding taking verses in turn. Excellent close to a most excellent tour…if you did not catch Hymns on this tour, stay tuned, we will bring them to your hometown someday.

The most comprehensive online resource of music Allmusic.com posted their review of Hymns Brother/Sister and we are thrilled that they have confirmed what we have all known for some time…and they left the boys a little room for improvement, striving for that elusive fifth star! Allmusic.com September 17, 2006 Brother/Sister Hymns Review by Jo-Ann Greene Some CDs smack you right over the head, strutting their stuff straight out of the speakers, Hymns’ Brother/Sister isn’t one of them, its many charms are much more subtle than that. The quartet’s debut is not a grandiose album, but it is a glorious one, the type one returns to time and again. The first thing one notices is the luminescent quality of the music — all the songs positively glow, the more rocking numbers in bright colors, the more laid-back in pastel shades. Then there’s the energy, not adrenaline drenched, but with a joie de vivre and a breeziness that wafts up and infuses the entire set. Next, the fabulous double-guitar work looms into view. Brian Harding and Jason Roberts have been playing together since grade school and it shows, their riffs and leads flawlessly intertwining, gracefully switching roles until they make a nonsense of the terms “rhythm” and “lead” guitar. As supple as they are subtle, the pair blur genre lines along the way, but in the end, their North Carolina roots inevitably show, all those years picking away on the porch shining through. Behind them, the equally subtle rhythm section gently powers the songs. To call Hymns’ music Southern rock would be a misnomer, not with numbers like the pumping title track, the dreamy “C’Mon, C’Mon,” the alt-pop flavored “First Time,” the punky “Power in the Street,” or the dynamics laced almost alt-rocker “Stop Talking” in their repertoire. “Magazine” may be country-fried, but its in a Rolling Stones sort of way, and besides, what Southern rocker ever wrote a song as light-hearted and infectious as “Friends of Mine”? There are at least six songs vying for singles status within, perhaps simultaneously, as they could all be aimed at different markets. And that’s the beauty of this set, its many shadings creating an aural rainbow, magnificent in its incandescence. Rating: Four out of Five Stars

Artist: Hymns Title: Brother / Sister Label: Blackland Records Released: October 10, 2006 Hymns is a Sunday morning church name, and the group’s Brother/Sister CD is illustrated like an old Baptist hymnal. But the music Hymns creates is not nearly so liturgical. Instead, this New York City-based outfit is a rock band infused with touches of Americana. Brian Harding has one of those nasal, Doug Sahm-y voices that give many of his vocals a country-rock vibe. The pedal steel guitar that comes and goes here and there only adds to such an effect. It must be the group’s big city base that keeps it from becoming too down home. “Power in the Street” for instance, sounds a lot like its city neighbors, The Strokes. Other side roads include “First Time” which is a la Byrds jangly, as well as the closer “Town” which incorporates piano, horns, and touches that are more than a little psychedelic. It can be tough going figuring out what Hymns are trying to say through the stanzas of its songs. The track “Brother/Sister” may well be about familial relationships, whereas a line in “Starboat” about teenage symphonies might allude to The Beach Boys and the music business in general. These songs won’t ever replace the old numbers the choir sings, nor will they compete with the rock & roll worship music so popular these days. But if you’re one that stays away from steeples and such on Sunday mornings, it offers a quiet and gentle way to face the Sabbath. - Dan MacIntosh, Amplifier Magazine

We are pleased to announce that Hymns will be opening for Ben Kweller during October. They are playing some very cool clubs and theatres, including The Vic Theatre in Chicago, two nights at Webster Hall in New York and Avalon in Boston. You can see all the dates in our tour section.

Blackland Records is very excited to announce the formation of a Strategic Alliance with Rock Ridge Music which will include distribution throughout the US and Canada through Alternative Distribution Alliance (ADA). The official release date for Hymns debut record Brother/Sister is October 10th. Until then you can only buy the CD through this site and at the band’s shows. ADA is one of the leading independent music distributors in the US and is currently bringing such artists as Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Arctic Monkeys, Band of Horses, Calexico, and Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley) to stores near you…in 11 weeks you can add Hymns to that list. (They also distribute Gnarls Barkley, Panic! At The Disco and Fall Out Boy, but we forgive them.)

Brother/Sister is the debut record from Hymns. We at Blackland Records have been selling a nice limited edition vinyl version of this record for a few months. We have recently discovered an amazing new compact disc (CD) technology that allows digital reproduction of the same glorious sounds that are on the LP. So we have pressed some CDs and you can buy them now only through the online store of this website (that’s why we call it a “soft release”). The CD should be in your favorite record store by mid-July (this will be the “hard release” that you have heard so much about.) But you don’t have to wait.