Pop Music Reviews : Texas Bone-Crunching With the Buck Pets

Those enthralled with the new sounds of the Northwest might care to turn their attention momentarily to deep in the heart of Texas. That’s where the Buck Pets hail from, and at the Whisky on Tuesday they did Soundgarden et al one better: They played their heavy rock at a decent clip.

Where the Northwest sound is noted for its trudging gait, the Dallas quartet--though playing with a similarly dense, enveloping effect--seemed more like Seattle Slew than Seattle’s slough, more influenced by Black Flag than Black Sabbath, with more zip than ersatz Zeps.

Not that it thrashed formlessly, or even really thrashed--the band relies on songs as much as sonics, a development particularly emphasized on the band’s recent sophomore album “Mercurotones” and in such outside material choices Tuesday as Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere” and Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady.”

Bone-crunching riffs, tunes that are actually tunes and not-a-boy-but-not-a-man lyrics that largely manage to avoid cliches made for a winning trifecta Tuesday. Andy Thompson’s vocals and Chris Savage’s lead guitar both came across rich and unaffected--no phony drama or flighty solos--and drummer Tony Alba somehow kept matters simultaneously loose and tight. But the MVP may be Ian Beach, whose anchoring bass reaffirmed just how essential that instrument is to this kind of music.

Variations on those aesthetics came from compatible support quartets the Dharma Bums and Carnival Art.