Maturity is one the most dangerous things that can happen to a carefree, bash-it-up rock-and roll band. That scrappy outfit that used to sing about getting drunk and only knew three chords on one album can scarily follow it up with a belabored personal meditation on time and space featuring a 10-minute closing opus with separate movements and a string section. Yeah, that shit ain’t pretty and luckily it’s not the case with Two Cow Garage. This band was never quit that three-chord-banging garage band caricature, but has certainly stepped far enough ahead and away from their brand of punked-up roots rock. With their aptly titled third album the Columbus, Ohio trio is showing off significant growth and change. They’ve grown so much, in fact, that the band recently added a full-time keyboardist to make it a quartet. And there’s more. The fist-shaking alt.country upstarts have reached that point where they are taking stock of it all: This is the Two Cow Garage record about being in Two Cow Garage. On “No Shame” guitarist Micah Schnabel sounds genuinely beleaguered singing about his guitar and amp ruining his life and admits that a better future might be found in “just giving up and walking away.” From a band that spends most of its life on the road moving from one low-pay bar gig to the next, it’s hard not to realize that “No Shame” is a defining moment for Two Cow Garage. Sure, this is a band that has exorcised blue-collar pathos and the troubles of youth in its music, but always seemingly finding an ultimate glory and release in holding a six-string or drumsticks. These were their tools of healing but are now proving to be the instruments of their destruction. On the Neil Young-furied “Postcards and Apologies” Schnabel even admits, “This rock and roll bullshit has gone to my head.” Bassist Shane Sweeney leads the way on two more of III’s doses of tough reality with the contemplative “Blanket Gray” and unabashedly and un-ironically Skynyrdish “Now I Know.” Okay, harsh realizations and personal politics not enough? Sweeney’s gravelly vox delivers Two Cow’s most politicized moment to date on the right-wing-abhorring “Gape and Shudder,” decrying a fucked-up state of the nation. The bleak “Arson,” which delves into childhood pyromania, finds drummer Dustin Harrigle outro-ing with a combustive, apocalyptic solo. Dejected? Dark? Angry? Political? Yeah, but Two Cow still haven’t lost of their ballsy tenacity and charm. III is a load of fun, too. “Epitaph” is a bristling lesson in hook and riffage, “Camo Jacket” offers lusty, rip-roaring blast of fun and nothing rides quite like the county fair carney tragedy of “The Great Gravitron Massacre.” This is also band that has never shied away from nudging pop cultural references, be it “watching The Outsiders” (“No Shame”) or the Who blaring during a moment of unsure dashboard passion (“Camaro”), and they remain fun to hear. This is part of the reason why we love them. And if they’ve grown up a bit, that’s okay, because III shows all the signs of natural, quality maturation and not the sonic equivalent of a sad, akward pubescent crustache.

Hardly the most prolific act, this EP marks only the fifth release in Golden Smog’s “career,” which spans more than 15 years. Golden Smog is hardly a career, really, because these guys have been busy holding down killer day jobs. Gary Louris and Marc Perlman (Jayhawks), Dan Murphy (Soul Asylum) and Kraig Johnson (Run Westy Run) have all had other stuff to do. These guys don’t really need Golden Smog. (You gotta figure that Gary Louris’ time is better spent these days cashing fat checks writing for the Dixie Chicks…) And speaking of not needing, Golden Smog doesn’t need Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who is absent from the lineup here for the first time since 1995’s Down by the Old Mainstream. Blood on the Slacks comes within a year of the Smog’s genial Another Fine Day and marks a sort of return to the roots, as this band started in Minneapolis as a sort of ad hoc, all-star cover band. They’ve always picked their covers well and this EP is no exception, offering a lilting psych baroque redo of Bowie’s “Starman” and a faithful blowup of Dinosaur Jr’s “Tarpit.” The covers have consistently been a fun part of Golden Smog’s sideshow, but in a band with so many great songwriters, the real meat has always been in the originals. Here the Smog offers up the New-Order-meets-Beach-Boys gem “Can’t Even Tie Your Own Shoes” and gently austere “Without a Struggle.” Studio scribblings and just-for-fun takes—like the junkyard blooze of “Insecure” and slipshod exotica of “Magician”—even prove well done in the hands of the Smogsters.