As Houston favorites Buxton chugs off in the more rock-oriented direction of upcoming New West debut Nothing Here Seems Strange, Ancient Cat Society has formed to help balance out the folk/bluegrass/gospel scales. Steered by Buxton front man Sergio Trevino, flanked by bandmates Austin Sepulvado (guitar) and Haley Barnes (keyboards/vocals), the Cat Society has already been a big hit at Leon’s Lounge, where their bare-bones spirituals of faith, doubt and discovery have drawn droves of roots-minded, reverent hipsters to several installments of the repurposed Midtown dive since the group’s debut earlier this spring. (The Cats come back to Leon’s July 19.) With a full album supposedly in the works, the Society branches out to Fitzgerald’s Sunday, appropriately, with Houston folk-pop expatriate Elaine Greer playing a few tunes from her fetching full-length Annotations. New West must be relieved, because when Buxton heads out on tour to support Strange this fall, they’ve already got a built-in opener.
This article appears in Jul 13, 2007 – Jul 7, 2011.
