Bovine

Bovine make country music with one boot in the honky-tonk and the other somewhere out in left field.

The Austin crew mixes spacey country, story-heavy Americana, protest-rock bite and big, warm harmonies into a sound they’ve jokingly dubbed “y’allternative.”

Onstage, piano rolls like an old saloon, guitars and pedal steel add the dust, and the vocals give the whole thing a communal, sing-it-together feel.

They can get tender, rowdy or strange without losing the thread, which makes a Bovine show feel less like a polished country set and more like a bunch of good players seeing how far they can stretch the form.