LISTEN: Jonny Tex Crafts Poetic Indie Rock On “Bill”

Jonny Tex is an indie rock band from Boston, Massachusetts, assembled from the wreckage of a messy country cover act and rebuilt with tighter songs, dry humor, and a steadier hand on the wheel. Their music runs on earnest absurdism and slacker-pop precision, with Western undertones woven through East Coast restraint. 

Mark of Cain, available now via Austin label Happen Twice, is four songs about men performing as someone larger than themselves: insisting everything’s fine, shutting people out, picking fights with their own reflection. The EP moves through a cast of vignettes — wide-eyed indie rock, alt-western isolation, lovesick indecision, and a Dinosaur Jr.-inspired closer about getting tripped up by jealousy. The whole thing is held together by misguided sincerity and cheap heroism.

Frontman Tex, a former youth pastor-in-training, writes as someone who mistakes confidence for clarity. The narrator is more amused than sympathetic, and not entirely off the hook himself. 

“Bill,” an early favorite from the band’s fresh project, is a proper introduction to the gritty post-country Jonny Tex has been crafting. This performance details the band’s journey from country cover act to self-assured, singular indie rock, displaying a unique balance between the two worlds and tying it all together with potent poetry. “Bill” immerses with its jagged vocal melodies, delivering vivid slacker imagery that drives the performance, while the sleek yet explosive arrangement leaves the listener staggered after only one listen. One listen, though, is not enough, as the innate charm of “Bill” glues itself to the sides of your brain, begging for the performance to be heard again and again. Mark of Cain proves that this young band has already found its sense of individuality, and “Bill” is only a slice of the heartfelt beauty that fills this project.