NME MAGAZINE
The Austin Sound, Five more rising bands from the Texas capital
"Singer Lindsey Mackin channels Janis Joplin and Jefferson Airplane's Grace Slick"
NPR
The Austin 100: Dive Into Our Annual Mix Of Artists To Watch At The SXSW Music Festival
"Lindsey Mackin's voice soars and rages over stormy psych-rock jams."
THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
Annabelle Chairlegs Warms Orbison's "Blue Bayou"
Before her next full-length, Annabelle Chairlegs principal Lindsey Mackin needed to air out some years-lost, Tascam 244 4-track-composed songs of the tender persuasion. Enter The Sad Machine Series, Pt. 1. The hopeful, homespun collection lets Mackin's intuitively charismatic vocal vulnerability shine outside the psych-pop troupe's typical force, keeping the sly sass and smart guitar turns. Punchy center "Sad Machine" ("You're so blue") sets up heartachy strums & voice for "Blue Bayou," Roy Orbison-penned classic of Linda Ronstadt. Mackin cleverly streamlines the croon with droopy Sixties-pulled melodies, a perfectly warm lo-fi modernization. – Rachel Rascoe
The Austin Chronicle
Austin City Limits Review: Annabelle Chairlegs
2015 bubble-gummy debut Watermelon Summer still their sole recording, townie rockers Annabelle Chairlegs have promised a spookier sophomore follow-up ever since. Their Friday morning ACL Fest set delivered an array of tougher, shriek-ier unreleased compositions outside of their YouTube iterations.
And if the locals’ giant blowup likeness at the Austin airport ACL store is any indication, they’ve gained an audience in the interim between releases.
Seeking redemption after a cancelled Levitation performance last year, the high voltage garage group broke in the Miller Lite stage to begin ACL’s second weekend. The tough, sweltering time slot drew a solid crowd of a couple hundred people, hooting at the mandatory announcement, “We’re from Austin.”
The performance rode on the shoulders of powerhouse songwriter and vocalist Lindsey Mackin, who was mostly concealed by her waist-length mane. Guitarist Matt Schweinberg and bassist Derek Vaughan Nunez Strahan completed the frontal wall of brunette hair thrashing, providing the psych and surf accessories to the front woman’s flipping croon, all backed by the drumming of Billy Wong.
Sassy Chairlegs classic “Axe Me If I Care” cut like a knife, swirling rhymes sharpened by Mackin’s girl-group-gone-gritty voice. Newer gem “Candy Apple Red” followed by unleashing the singer’s full-throated growl, which blithely channels Janis Joplin in scatty, yipping ferociousness. Added noir and snarl signaled the next LP’s direction, keeping some catchy jangle for the fun of it.
Oozy shredding propelled fresh closer “Brainfreeze,” a twisted tale of questionable decisions with a few of Mackin’s typically cryptic pit stops. As the finale faded into guitar oscillations, some watchers pushed up to stake a front row view of the next act, but many headed their separate ways. They had come to see Annabelle Chairlegs.
https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2017-10-14/acl-review-annabelle-chairlegs/
PHOTO BY SHELLEY HIAM
The Austin Chronicle
Seven Local Acts To See At SXSW
"Annabelle Chairlegs plays out around town often, exuding polished, glitzy, Sixties-inspired rock & roll fleshed out by guitar licks straddling the line between surf-y and noir. Helmed by Mackin's strange, arresting voice, usually either a powerful belt or contorted into theatrical yelping, the band commands the stage with intense authority. After last spring's Levitation cancellation, they got re-booked at Barracuda for an early spot inside, which they packed and coursed electricity through the front room audience "
http://www.austinchronicle.com/music/2017-03-03/seven-local-acts-to-see-at-sxsw-music-annabelle-chairlegs/
KUTX 98.9
Song Of The Day
Austin’s Annabelle Chairlegs live in a microdose of psychedelia. A cyclone of energy, these guys aren’t out to break down the walls of psych rock, they’re just trying to break down your living room walls. Vocalist and chief songwriter Lindsey Mackin’s surreal set of pipes can whip and growl in a single breath that bites like Janis and floats like Debbie Harry. Wrapped-up in wailing guitars and a head-bumping bassline, it’s not the brainfreeze you need to worry about, it’s the spins.
Find the Studio 1A version of “Brainfreeze” below.
–Taylor Wallace // host, Saturday 2-6 p.m., producer, Eklektikos and SoundCheck
http://kutx.org/song-of-the-day/annabelle-chairlegs-brainfreeze-live-in-studio-1a
AUSTIN 360
‘Slack Capital’ release party: 4 Austin bands you need to know
Annabelle Chairlegs. Ladies and gentlemen, meet one of Austin’s future “big things”. Thoroughly captivating lead singer Lindsey Macklin stirs a cauldron of simmering emotion that frequently and furiously boils over into explosive, guitar screeching psych rock. The group has been steadily gaining traction on the Austin underground and was just added to the lineup for Levitation Fest at the end of the month.
http://music.blog.austin360.com/2016/04/18/slack-capital-release-party-4-austin-bands-you-need-to-know/
KUTX 98.9
I’m pretty sure I haven’t taken any LSD today, but listening to Austin’s Annabelle Chairlegs makes me wonder. Vocalist and chief songwriter Lindsey Mackin has a knack for writing lyrics just surreal enough to keep you looking over your shoulder to make sure that wall behind you isn’t really breathing. Drummer Billy Wong, bassist Derek Vaughan Nunez Strahan and guitarist Matt Schweinberg don’t do anything to help my vertigo either. But these aren’t epic psych rock freakouts stretching into the outer galaxies of consciousness, these are quick spins around our own solar system crammed into a 3 minute package of delightfully spaced out surf rock.
http://kutx.org/musicarchive/annabelle-chairlegs-1-6-17
The Deli Magazine
Annabelle Chairlegs is Dreamy, Lo-Fi and Has an Axe
Annabelle Chairlegs' music and video for track "Axe Me If I Care" is all dreamed-out California sunsoaked indie pop. Lead wailer Lindsey Mackin's voice and look are like someone took a hair off Valley Girl-era Bonnie Hayes' punk/pop head (not, to be clear, pop punk) and did mad music science to spit out a new creature that had Hayes' gripping vocal abilities, but was a bit more hippy-ish. In fact, if it weren't for the punklike edge in Mackin's voice and the pared down drum sound, Annabelle Chairlegs tracks sound nearly straight out of the 60s. Throw that punk twist on it, and drop a little bit of 90s alt rock jangle, and it's workin' for me. These guys are raw and rough, but the potential is there for this band to go big places.
http://austin.thedelimagazine.com/20320/annabelle-chairlegs-dreamy-lo-fi-and-has-axe
OVRLD
The Latest Toughs: Cap’n Kirk, Exploded Drawing and More
Maybe this wasn’t the intended message of the modern psych rock doc Dig! but by the end of that movie my chief thought was “As crazy as that dude is, I’d still much rather be in a band with Anton Newcombe than those self-absorbed dicks in the Dandy Warhols.” The Dandy Warhols’ sound, if you will remember, was built around making psych go pop, so it still had the groove and the weirdness but it lacked the haze and confusion and unease. It was psych without paranoia, a big beat with no insanity to keep you on your toes. I have no reason to suspect that anyone in Annabelle Chairlegs is even a tenth as crazy as Newcombe, nonetheless I think their new track “King of the Future” shows they swear the same allegiance in the Brian Jonestown Massacre-Dandy Warhols feud. Escalating from a slow single string guitar riff into a two step dance between Texas blues rock rhythm and shoegaze swell, “King of the Future” culminates in a very Newcombe chorus, Lindsey Mackin stating “the future” over and over, twisting it in her mouth until it is both declaration and question, dream and nightmare. There might not be any radio friendly hooks here, but the menace and the fear in the lyrics and sonic architecture are their own kind of addictive, a vision you don’t understand yet return to over and over, hoping for some kind of meaning.
http://ovrld.com/latest-toughs/exploded-drawing-2015/
POP PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Live Review: Raw Paw’s Ditch the Fest 6
"The musical equivalent of running around back alleys in high heels, Annabelle Chairlegs contributes elements of lo-fi and vintage pop to DTF 6, bringing the audience to a definite sway."
THE GREY ESTATES
Watermelon Summer Track Review
It’s been a long time since Pennsylvania has seen the sun, but I think I remember what summer is like. Even on the hottest and haziest days there’s something about the summer season that always feels really magical, and Annabelle Chairlegs captures that magic in the title track from their full length Watermelon Summer out on April 2nd. It’s a trippy and candied single, with vocalist Lindsay Mackin’s pipes feeling as limitless as a cloudless blue skies, her bandmates, Mark Williams, Matt Schewinberg and Derek Vaughan Nunez Strahan weaving a tapestry of psychedelic instrumentals. We can’t wait for the season of Watermelon Summer.
OVRLD
The Latest Toughs: Hundred Visions, Annabelle Chairlegs,Tank Washinging and more
It may be nearly winter, but Annabelle Chairlegs’ “Axe Me If I Care” is sunny enough to take you all the way back to mid ’60s California beaches. This brand of sun soaked, Shangri-Las infused girl group pop seems to be on the upswing in Austin at the moment, but Annabelle Chairlegs are veterans of the sound and their recordings are washed through with enough tape hiss and lo-fidelity to make it seem all the more authentic. “Axe Me If I Care” is the best moment on their new All Black in the Sun EP, full of sonic twists and turns, from the downbeat fake out intro to the big group harmony on the bridge and the minimalist bass and drum break down that serves as its opposite. Like the Shangri-Las before them, Annabelle Chairlegs know when to play sweet and when to get snotty, something that is immediately clear right from the title of “Axe Me If I Care,” and that duality elevates them above some of their more kitschy peers.
http://ovrld.com/latest-toughs/hundred-visions-2/