The Ponys

Some say The Ponys were too late to the garage rock revival–another me-too gang of half-Strokes, half-Hives hipsters–but anyone who caught the Chicago band in concert last year knows what the real problem was. Lead singer Jered Gummere had a terrible habit of squealing in falsetto after every fourth syllable, and it was enough to make you rush the stage and smack him a bit. Luckily, it sounds like someone did just that on new album Celebration Castle, where his singing has finally improved and the band now sounds like it owns the garage genre rather than just mimics it. Catch the quickly improving rockers Thursday at Fort Worth’s Wreck Room, and if Gummere’s singing gets out of hand, well, you know what to do.