Music

Hours before this performance at Antone’s, we met with Jack Barnett and his New Puritans on Red River St. in Austin. Video camera on, mic in hand, we asked about TNP's first trip to the States. Actually they didn't give the impression it was going all that well, or maybe they just weren't impressed by what they'd seen so far of SXSW ... but whatever apathy we thought we picked up on evaporated in Antone's house of blues last night. It's not that the band loosened up -- no, they stayed tightly wound -- but there was more palpable energy coming from each of Jack's arm raises -- and more cool from each repeated line -- than we had reason to expect. Like we said earlier, the set was easily a highlight of the night, but the coiled post-punk of "Elvis" is already our song of SXSW '08. And we thought it'd be nice to bring you there. Click here [stereogum.com] to watch the performance and get more SXSW updates.