Dark and Hard By Marie-Adele Moniot metroactive.com Participating in Austin's South by Southwest Music Festival (and Conference!) is a bit like driving a car. There's always the chance you might hurt someone (SXSW rage, generally aimed at record execs). But if you just look straight ahead, you'll get where you're going and probably have a swell time if the music's cranked loud enough. On Thursday, night two of the festival, Berkeley's Lookout! Records set up camp in Room 710, a newcomer to the Austin club scene but unmatched in its weekly rotation of punk, metal, and rock acts. It was an unusually hot and steamy evening, perfect for the sultry and urgent sounds of Oakland-based rock-and-roll outfit, Black Cat Music. One of six Lookout! bands sharing the stage, they appeared smack dab in the middle of the night, wedged between four punk bands. The other bands weren't a distraction. Black Cat Music, and specifically frontman Brady Baltezore, command-ed the stage with their confident brand of moody, fast-paced rock and more than a bit of roll. Room 710 is divided into two narrow spaces with the bar serving as the neutral zone. When Black Cat Music took the stage, most people were milling about on the other side, chatting and boozing (the top two activities of South by Southwest; number three is listening to music). By the end of the set, the stage area was full with a few people dancing and more than a few heads bobbing furiously. Black Cat Music's sound and presence are seductive. They lure you into their trap and kick you back out again with a smile on your face. The set consisted of songs from their recent Lookout! Release, Hands in the Estuary, Torso in the Lake, a gem of an album with dark lyrics, rock-out guitar parts, driving bass, and superhuman drums. The album's title will have to remain somewhat of a mystery, but if you pay attention to gruesome local news, you'll know the lake refers to Lake Merritt, and the torso refers to, well, a torso. So yes, Black Cat Music is not for the squeamish. The music can be furious or restrained, but the lyrics are almost always tragic. Baltezore's pained voice delivers lyrics like, "You said that you could save everything / I promise you that you are wrong." Baltezore is like a non-skittish Morrissey. In person, he resurrects the air of self-assurance favored by singers of a different decade, when cool detachment wasn't part of the game. His words seem to come from his toes, writhing their way up through his body. His allure distracts you from his disturbing turns of phrase, but it never dampens the effect of his bandmates' precise instrumentation. Omar Perez stands coolly to the side, bluesing it up with heavy bass. Guitarist Travis Dutton adds a little electricity to counter Perez's restraint, while Daniel M. pounds his drum kit with punk-style ferocity. All of the band's members are graduates of venerable East Bay punk outfits like The Criminals and The Receivers. With Black Cat Music, they've created a new sound that borrows from rock-and-roll history but escapes the pitfalls of today's derivative rock outfits by infusing it with a unique punk aesthetic. And, of course, they're damn sexy. Scrapbook