UPDATEDx2: Album review: Candidate Waltz by Centro-Matic

by Josh Hogan

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No searching is required to find the radiance in Candidate Waltz.

Denton band Centro-Matic is calling Candidate Waltz, released June 21, their “meat-and-potatoes pop record.” While we wouldn’t go so far as to call it a “pop record,” necessarily, there’s no denying the mouthwatering meat-and-potatoes appeal of Candidate Waltz.

The brilliance in this album is in its simplicity. What happens when you take a Centro-Matic album, strip it down to its bare bones, and then kick some newfound energy into the tracks? You get this new disc, a clear and obvious view of Will Johnson’s outstanding song crafting ability and a fresh sound from one of Denton’s most venerable groups.

And again, it's not exactly pop, but Candidate Waltz does lean further in that direction than any other Centro-Matic album ever has. In fact, some of the album’s best moments are when the band presses right up against that genre in tracks like “Estimate x 3,” which starts off as a little toe tapper that eventually builds into a full-fledged pop rock gem. Other tracks, like “All The Talkers” – about a band fighting through “cubicle-jobbers” who chat incessantly during their set – is a little more close to home with the rest of Centro-Matic’s discography. And yet, this song is an even brighter spotlight on Johnson’s emotion-filled lyrics.

Candidate Waltz is, without a doubt, the Centro-Matic album that contains everything we’ve grown to expect from them. The poetry in motion that has existed in the band’s past remains the same in Waltz, but with a little more livelihood and drive. In the past, the band begged you to dive deep into their albums and wade around in their expansiveness. This time around, though, it’s all right there in front of you; no searching is required to find the radiance.

As stripped down and dirty as it is, it is still musical radiance.

The band plays Dan's Silver Leaf in Denton on July 7 with Sarah Jaffe.

UPDATE: Starting at 9 a.m. CT on Tuesday, June 21 and continuing until 9 a.m. Wednesday, June 22, all profits from digital download sales of Candidate Waltz at the Undertow Store will be donated to the Red Cross for tornado and flood relief.

UPDATE x2: In conjunction with the new album, Centro-Matic just released the video for "Iso-Residue," the third track on the disc. According to the band, the footage is from a trip in Spain and from a New Year's Eve show in Dallas at the Kessler Theater.

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