Two hardcore lifers from Houston pick up acoustic guitars and make something genuinely good. That’s the short version. The longer one involves True Detective, Schopenhauer, and a Bandcamp bio that reads “sad music for a$$holes”, which Daniel Austin confirms is funny because it’s true.
Austin and Chris have played together since they were teenagers, mostly in Will To Live and Die Young. Mr. Charisma started almost by accident: Austin was working on acoustic demos, one became Mind Don’t Work, he sent it to Chris, Chris tracked vocals on his phone and sent it back. Austin says his jaw dropped. You can kind of hear why.
The EP is four tracks in minor and Dorian scales. The title track Evil in This World maps evil as something internal and necessary rather than external and conquerable, pulling from Jung, Schopenhauer, and Rust Cohle in roughly equal measure. Mind Don’t Work is the one that hit me hardest – the chorus nails something about the current moment that takes most writers a whole album to approach. There’s a Social Distortion cover in the middle that fits so well it doesn’t announce itself. In Another Time closes things out with an unsentimental argument against utopian thinking from any angle. Go follow them on Instagram. This one deserves more ears.
Follow Mr. Charisma: Instagram – Spotify
