THE ROCKETBOYS

Build Anyway

therocketboys.com

For those familiar with this Austin band’s backstory, Build Anyway will play like a concept album about the sextet-turned-trio’s promising start, subsequent hiatus and triumphant—singer Brandon Kinder hopes—comeback. Then again, “Marching to the Palace” and “These Are Hard Times” could just be about girls. Either way, Kinder and his two remaining bandmates turn bad feelings into big music, using earnest lyrics, charging drums and unashamedly grand synths and guitars to emerge Coldplay-like from their cocoon of disappointment. The line, “If all of my troubles are hurricanes, then I’m seeing circling clouds,” gives a good indication of the grandiosity Kinder is going for, and he’s got the conviction to just about pull it off.