This past Sunday Metal featured the Texas Hippie Coalition.

Since then, I bought two of their albums, “Pride of Texas” and “Rollin'”. Been listening to them while I’ve been working. My verdict? They’re OK and have potential.

The bad: lyrics. While I don’t have their lyrics memorized yet, there are some lyrics that I think are just stupid sounding in a song…. like the chorus from “Leavin'”. I mean, the rest of the song seems alright, and then… the chorus. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it feels like something you might have snickered over in junior high school, or certainly Beavis & Butthead would giggle over it.

Their big single, “Pissed Off and Mad About It”. I mean, what else are you going to be? Pissed off and pleasantly OK with it? And the chorus is a little cliché too… “so let me scream and shout it”.

But that said, that’s also what makes that song so damn catchy. The chorus is one major hook. The song has such a groove to it, you can’t not start banging your head and finding that chorus stuck in your head the rest of the day. I had to take my kids shopping and the whole time I had that song rolling through my head. I do think it’s a cool song, because it has attitude.

Big Dad Ritch’s voice is pretty cool; very powerful and works very well in this context — it’s metal, but it’s southern, and all Texas attitude. Guitars have a real groove to them, certainly a lot of Dimebag and Zakk Wylde influence but certainly they are their own sound and style. I think that’s what I dig the most about the band is their groove, their sound. It’s heavy, but it’s accessible.

Check them out. It took me some listening to songs via YouTube searches and MySpace to see if I liked them enough to plunk down my money for their albums, but I don’t regret it. If they come to Austin, I’d like to check them out live.