by LORRAINE CARPENTER

Hailing from the so-called “mescaline-fuelled outskirts” of Austin, Texas, the Black Angels are the sons and daughters of preachers, morticians and cult members. Their musical lineage can be traced back through the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Velvet Underground, from whose “Black Angel’s Death Song” the band derived their name. But within their psychedelic rock mantras, the sextet discovered an even older influence, inspiring them to define their sound as “electric Native American drone ’n’ roll.”

“This eight-year-old kid was describing us, he said it sounds like a Navajo on the drums, magicians on the guitars and a caveman singing,” says singer Alex Maas. Although some of the Black Angels have Native ancestors, none of them were exposed to traditional music at home. Maas often finds himself downplaying the relevance of their bloodlines, along with the motives behind songs like “Empire,” “Young Men Dead” and “The First Vietnamese War,” three of the more overtly political songs on their debut album, Passover.

“People say, ‘You talk about political stuff, you guys are a political band.’ But we’re not a political band, we just observe the human condition and care about people.”

Austin is known as a liberal oasis in Texas, a college town renowned for its annual South By Southwest music festival, which just dropped the rock ’n’ roll bomb a month ago. Since the emergence of bands like the Black Angels, Vietnam and the Secret Machines, it’s been said that “Texas is fast becoming the new psych capital of the U.S.” Some theorize that this has as much to do with musical influences, whether from the annual SXSW influx, or the history of homegrown psychedelic bands like 13th Floor Elevator, as the region’s physical features. Outside Austin’s booming urban centre is the desert, where you may or may not find people attempting some kind of spiritual (or chemical) awakening.

“There’s a nostalgic mysticism about the desert,” says Maas. “I was just talking to my friend the other day, she said, ‘I’m gonna go there and find myself—I just want the desert to speak to me,’ and I’m just like, ‘Oh my God, sister, go for it.’”

Time off track

The Black Angels find themselves on a regular basis, lulling audiences into trances with their 10-ton psychedelia, a process that sometimes lasts as long as three hours, complete with hypnotic visuals of whirling dervishes and African tribes.

“Sometimes we don’t keep track of time,” Maas admits, “but I thought that that was normal—I thought other bands did that too. I mean, sometimes our practices are like six, seven hours, so doing a three-hour show is not that hard. It’s like training for a marathon and running a half marathon.”

Part of the reason why epic rehearsals are so easy for the Black Angels is that four of them live together in what may have once been a grand old porn mansion.

“It dwarfs all the other houses in the area, and the neighbourhood kids call it a ’70s porn house. When we came in here, there was a lot of unnecessary gaudy stuff like a shag carpet and a hot-tub room—it never gets any use, but it’s just cool to say you have it.”

Not that the Black Angels don’t throw the kind of parties that leave mysterious guests sleeping in strange corners of the house, but they don’t aspire to the debauchery of their beloved late ’60s forefathers.

“We don’t get incredibly crazy like the MC5 did, just accidental cult activity, nothing on purpose,” says Maas. “But yeah, we kick out the jams out here.”

With Pink Mountaintops, Catfish Haven and Crystal Cliffs at la Sala Rossa on Friday, June 9, 9 p.m., $12

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