They're simply a bar band, nothing more. It's nuts to start giving this 4, and 5 star ratings. I admire their spirit, and what they stand for though, so here's hoping they get some good direction in the future.

Brit Jones, and boys come out swinging on this, their second studio disc. If you like catchy, drunken roots rock, then look no further. A lot has been said about the obstacles Brit had to overcome, and it's only made him wiser in the process. This is smart,and honest music. Don't miss out.

Born and bred on a barstool, Stickpony's third release plays like a sociological case study of the hard-drinking nightlife and its resulting wreckage. Since 2001, the local quintet has faced an Aerosmith-sized list of maladies, including a catastrophic illness that nearly claimed the life of songwriter/guitarist Brit Jones and the departure of every founding member except him. Subsequently, it isn't hard to detect a wizened resignation to The Way Things Are in this 10-song testimonial. Stickpony's twang-laden drunk rock may reek of beer and cigarettes, but its slurred, growling guitar draws you in with open arms and a total lack of pretense. The begrudged camaraderie behind drinking songs such as "Friends Like These" and "Drunk Waiting to Happen" is just what you need upon returning to the familiar fold after getting fired or dumped. The jaunty "Painkillers" trades one vice for another, extrapolating on the oft-irresistible allure of prescribed analgesia, while "Only One" succumbs to destructive romance in a blaze of fleeting glory. The Hickoids are an obvious touchstone for Stickpony, and they pay reverent tribute to the Austin cowpunk legends with "TX Tabloid (Hickoid Wannabe)." They also pay respects to the honky-tonk heartbreaker Lefty Frizzell with a cover of "Little Ol' Winedrinker Me." While it's all somewhat depressing at face value, once Jones & Co. start railing against all that darkness, a sense of bemused exhalation sets in. Or maybe that's just the Pearl talking.

There's a bit of the hard-drinkin', blue-collar everyman in Stickpony singer Brit Jones' claustrophobic tales of just trying to get by. Like a ballplayer scrapping his way back to the big leagues after a horrendous injury, the band refuses to die. Just to have a second Stickpony platter is an unexpected delight. The longtime Austin band has persevered, though, and Underneath the Beer Light sloshes and twangs its way through ten slices of Bottle Rockets-like stompers and bar-band riff-raff Austin style, with the occasional side trip to pay tribute to Lefty Frizzell and Austin's (mostly) bygone cross-dressing alt-alt-alt-country rockers the Hickoids. Like another unheralded Austin troupe – the Shootin' Pains – Stickpony nip around the more absurd fringes of Austin's post-hippie, post-outlaw, post-punk philosophizing, with alternately funny and resonant results: Sometimes the truth, as on the glorious bridge of this album’s best song, "Paycheck", is all you need: "Nickel jukebox, pretty girls, $1.50 cans of Pearl, Mama sign your paycheck over to me."