These pointedly off-kilter Austin rapscallions have covered “Lay Lady Lay” recently, and while Dylan was always the obvious reference point for Ryan Sambol’s bleary bleat, the Nashville Skyline nod feels especially appropriate for his band’s third studio album. Live (rhymes with “give”) Music cleverly continues the rootsier turn of last year’s Be Brave, now emphasizing honky-tonk piano. Recorded half with Spoon’s Jim Eno, half with Be Brave producer Mike McHugh, it’s all slack — sometimes to a fault, but mostly not. Moving on from venerable garage-rock label In the Red, the Strange Boys are still scrounging up diamonds in the rough.
