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Billy King & The Bad Bad Bad are an Austin band who landed on what they call "Power Psych," a high-energy collision of garage rock, power pop, and psych and surf grit with a real anti-establishment streak. Guitarist-vocalist William "Billy King" Reynolds and lead guitarist Cameron Wren built it out of after-work jam sessions back in 2016, and you can hear the lineage running straight back to Roky Erickson and Pentagram. Austin Monthly slapped a "Surf Rock From Hell" tag on them, and honestly, that fits.
We have history here. Billy King & The Bad Bad Bad played Levitation in 2018, came back in 2021, and hit the stage again in 2023, so pressing Introspective Resolute as a Levitation Edition feels less like a new relationship and more like keeping one going. They are scene family at this point, and we are stoked to put their record on wax.
Introspective Resolute is the band's sophomore full-length, and you can hear them deliberately steering the ship somewhere darker. Across these ten tracks they push off the muscular riff-rock that built their name and wade into deeper, murkier psych. It is framed as a concept record, a soul-searching arc from fever-dream turmoil toward hope and clarity, and the sequencing actually earns that read rather than just claiming it.
If we are being honest, the front half hits harder than the back, and a couple of the slower, more searching passages ask for patience that not every spin will have. But that is the trade-off of a band reaching past its comfort zone, and we would rather hear them reach. The riffs still bite, the surf grit still cuts through the haze, and Show and Tell shows they have not lost the knack for a hook.
This is the kind of swing that rewards a real listen, which is exactly why it belongs on vinyl. Our edition runs to 100 copies on 'Tequila Sunrise' Galaxy Vinyl, and a record this committed to its own arc deserves a pressing you can sit with side to side.
Recommended if you like: The Black Angels, Christian Bland & The Revelators, The UFO Club.
