Local releases: Quiet Company, Carolyn Wonderland, Dale Watson, Sleep∞Over

Quiet Company

'We Are All Where We Belong'

(self-released)

Forget mood and abstract feeling. Austin rock band Quiet Company subscribes to a noncryptic, straightforward lyrical style on its recent release, "We Are All Where We Belong." Take a verse from "Fear and Fallacy Sitting in a Tree," "the problem with me and the problem with you, is that we're all just so scared to die."

The line is direct, and it touches on a theme that lead singer-songwriter Taylor Muse hits on repeatedly through the album, so much so that it might qualify as a concept album — a sensitive, upbeat rock album about atheism, or, as Muse puts it, becoming a nonbeliever (don't call it piano rock; Muse says that's a mischaracterization).

"It definitely kind of is a concept album," Muse says. "I've always been unclear on the exact definition of a concept album, but there are definitely themes."

To say there are themes is an understatement. At 15 tracks and just more than an hour long (an eon in an age of single MP3s and EPs), the music crests and crashes with thumping drums, big guitar (and less piano) and horns blaring in the background. Coupled with some heavy subject matter, it's an album that takes energy to listen to.

One of those themes is the idea of the boatman, the cloaked figure that guides you down the River Styx (or whatever river you choose to take to the underworld). He's present on the cover art for the album and in the song, as you might guess, "You, Me and the Boatman."

"He served as a really useful piece of imagery when you're writing songs about love and death, because death will separate all of us, and that scares the (expletive) out of me," Muse says. "It's kind of tragic but it's kind of strangely beautiful."

Muse wrote most of the songs two years ago when his daughter was born and he walked away from religion, which had been a big part of his life. He grew up in the Baptist church in East Texas, playing in praise bands, but his devotion had waned. At points on the album, Muse speaks directly to his daughter, including "Set Your Monster Free," in which he sings, "you don't have to hold onto beautiful lies," as the songs unfolds in a sleepy, sprawling catharsis of sound.

"For a long time I'd just been content to let everyone assume I was just the same as I'd always been, but when my daughter was born I decided I can't lie to her about how I think reality works, so therefore I can't lie to anyone else anymore," he says.

Coming out as a nonbeliever, Muse says, was a big deal to a lot of his friends and family. In that sense it's a breakup album, one where Muse doesn't leave much guessing about what he went through.

Quiet Company plays Friday as part of the Bob Schneider and Friends benefit for the Texas Wildfire Fund at the Backyard in Bee Cave. Details and tickets: thebackyard.net.

Sleep∞Over

'Forever'

(Hippos in Tanks)

"Forever," the debut from Austin electro-fuzz band Sleep∞Over, which used to have three members but now is a solo effort from Stefanie Franciotti, begins like a film with "Behind Closed Doors," a mood-setting fog of sound that hovers around, never quite making its own statement but implying that something is coming. What does follow is variously pleasing, hypnotic and abrasive. Each song is like a meandering thought, with different ideas coming and going, often with the feel of an improvisational session. At its best, the ideas flow in a weird symphony of vintage sci-fi sounds.

At times the music is almost too successful in its mission to induce a transcendent state. While "Romantic Streams" is a fairly straightforward dialogue between Franciotti's surreal voice and an '80s style bleep-bloop synth line, "Porcelain Hands" floats away on a cloud of strung-out organs and is closer to the norm on the album. Franciotti's vocal style — sometimes hard to distinguish from the other instruments — separates "Forever" from similar synth-inclined projects. On "The Heavens Turn By Themselves," her voice whirls around a fleeting drum machine. On "Flying Saucers are Real" (where Franciotti leaves in blurry moments of worn-out tape) it is the alien, wavering and pulsing in an otherworldly manner.