Treaty Oak Revival Paints a Raw Portrait of Life in Album, West Texas Degenerate
Five-piece powerhouse Treaty Oak Revival stay proud and true to their roots on their highly anticipated third self-released studio album, West Texas Degenerate. Across fourteen tracks, that band delivers a raw, unflinching portrait of life on the edge, capturing the chaos, heartbreak, addiction, and resilience of working-class people in boom-and-bust West Texas. With genre-blending grit that combines country, rock, and southern influences, the record tells the stories of those who rarely get sung about, people just trying to get by, fall in love, and make sense of the wreckage.
About the album's release, the band shared, "We're so excited that these songs are out now for everyone to hear! This record was a blast to make, and we hope y'all enjoy it as much as we did creating it."
The record opens with a brief "Intro," featuring Edgar Viveros of Ben Quad, and is composed mainly of dialogue that lasts over a minute and serves as a way to open the album's story. Over blistering guitar licks and driving percussion, the next track, "Port A," reminisces about college spring break memories, marking it as a last hurrah before the reality of impending adulthood hits. With lyrics like, "We're headed back from our week-long bender/ With a sunburn, a headache, and a new DUI," and "I left my rowdy ways on the shores of Corpus Christi/ Thank god for southern Texas, and thank god I'm still alive," the songs evoke nostalgia, youthful rebellion, and the bittersweet passage of time.
The title track, "West Texas Degenerate," explores relationships, alcohol, and the art of just getting by. The song features sweet guitar solos, as well as fellow Texas native William Clark Green, whose presence adds dimension, grit, and, of course, a bit of fun to the raucous and sonically fresh effort. Between cocaine, heartbreak, and blue-collar work, this track is perfectly stubborn and sarcastic, which may be the band's most lovable qualities.
Throughout the album, the band doesn't shy away from tackling more complex topics, like addiction, in songs like "Shit Hill" and "Withdrawals." While the former is about finding a person in denial about their problem, the latter finds someone suffering as they try to get clean. While the subject matter of both is dark, the band gives both tracks the kind of rootsy hooks and harmonies to make them go down easy. And of course, what is a country rock album without a bit of heartbreak? On Misery, they deliver gut-punching lines like "Put that last damn bullet in my broken heart", wanting to put an end to a failing relationship, and then numb themselves from the pain through psychedelic drugs on "Dosin."
The album's finale, "Blue Star," drives home the band's angsty pop-punk influences in this sucker-punching ode. Written after a Dallas Cowboys loss, lead singer and songwriter Sam Canty uses one of Texas's favorite pastimes as a metaphor for a relationship marked with disappointment and heartbreak. He croons, "And lately, I've had this feelin'/ Okay, but I don't wanna jinx it," admitting he's trying to keep a sense of realistic expectations that the "team," or more accurately, the relationship, may fall apart. On the hook, he compares it to a relationship he and his lover may not get to see through, because he feels no factors in a relationship have ever changed, and he feels like he's been here before.
Next up, Treaty Oak Revival will headline a run of Texas shows, including a special hometown performance at Odessa's Ector County Coliseum on December 11th, a stop at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth on December 20th, and a New Year's Eve show at Houston's Toyota Center on December 31st. In 2026, the band will return to the road for a string of festival appearances, including Stagecoach 2026 in Indio, CA.
