Goodnight, Texas is a band you’ve heard somewhere. You’re going through their catalog, hearing lyrics about trapped coal miners and lovebird bank robbers. Banjos and mandolins, genre tough to pin down. Now you’re interested, so you go see them live. The show is swelling to a fever pitch, and suddenly they’re singing devastating harmonies off mic, then rocking again, full tilt. Afterward you venture over to merch, and you’re curious about their new album Signals, since they did some of the new songs.

You investigate in headphones and indeed, the album kicks. The first single, “RUNAWAYS,” even features a guest solo from Metallica’s Kirk Hammett, who admired the band’s version of “Of Wolf and Man” on the 2022 covers album The Metallica Blacklist. Beyond the memorable sock-you-in-the-face riffs, GN, TX seems to be stretching sonic roots deeper in every direction on Signals, with studio help from Oakland’s Ian and Jay Pellicci (Deerhoof, Tune-Yards). Stories of the Americana of yore blend into the near past and present via tales of DB Cooper and North Dakota oil field workers. Electric guitars pound like hammers, but the mandolins still twinkle like dim stars.