This Could Be Texas

This Could Be Texas is the first and at the moment only album by indie rock band English Teacher. As Allmusic critic Marcy Donelson wrote: "chaotic, poignant, pretentious, fascinating, and thoroughly entertaining despite or because of it all.". The band is live also a fantastic experience and what's not to love about the front lady with the magnificent voice and great personality.

This was a surprise to see added. I discovered the band just after the album released in April 2024 and have been a big fan ever since. I've seen them live 3 times and been fortunate to meet them as well and even have a signed setlist. So of course I love this album! Now do I think it should be included? I really don't think so since I don't think it's doing anything super unique or distinct. It's really good and I love the songs but this style is already adequately covered by the list. It's really good and I recommend the band to people but I don't think it's essential. My personal rating: 5/5 My rating relative to the list: 5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No

Nice! Never heard of this group before but really dig this sound!

I hate to judge an album by its cover, but... I expect to enjoy this, based on how it looks Nearly twenty albums that won the Mercury Prize (winnable by artists in the UK and [allegedly] Ireland) ended up in the original 1001; two more including this one made its way on the user list. The subgenre of "sprechgesang in a British accent" seems to be doing wonders in music journalism right now (or "sprechgesang in an Irish accent" in Fontaines D.C.'s case). But This Could Be Texas proves to be a lot more than that, with all kinds of genres and moods getting explored. I have yet to decide when an album's identity crisis is a problem (case in point: the Beatles' The Beatles [1968]. One of my favourite albums ever). But this has been one of the more enjoyable examples, and especially forgiveable seeing as they're just starting out HL: "Mastermind Specialism", "Not Everybody Gets to Go to Space", "R&B", "Nearly Daffodils", "Sideboob" July 5, 2026

OK so the album art. Basic English countryside (nicely rendered to be fair) plus ... a not quite Dali guitar? If one of the sheep and a guitar accidentally wound up in the pod from The Fly? Given that and the fact that the sharer hasn't finished the list, which is an unfortunate bias I've admitted to before, I went into this album with the entirely wrong mindset. Nonetheless it won me over by the second song. Absolutely loved the whole album. Singing, talking, music, dissonance, lyrics. Not groundbreaking or foundational, but absolutely enjoyable.

As the album started, I was not getting a great vibe from the first few tracks. The vocalist seemed a bit affected in the delivery, and the songs felt a bit same same, not a lot of variety in the style. I'm glad I stuck with it. It got quite a bit more interesting about a third of the way through, much more range, different instrumentation, some harmonies that were cool. The five star scale is limiting, but generally I give a four to anything I think I want to listen to again, and so I'll give this four stars.

Should’ve been the last dinner party’s mercury prize

First thoughts: This sounds like every indie band everywhere. Then you hear her voice and think, she has a lovely voice. Then you start to really listen to the songs - the depth, the maturity, the beauty. It's so good. This will be going into my regular rotation. 4 stars.

I’m don’t remember ever hearing of English Teacher, which is odd, because I know I was scoping out a lot of ‘best of’ lists that year, since Cowboy Carter and Only God Was Above Us Came out that year. Regardless, I have no clue what to expect from this album, but I’m excited to check out something recent that wasn’t even on my radar. This wound up being a really solid album. I really enjoyed how the songs on this album developed, and I thought the way that the band arranged the instruments was really interesting. I really liked that they used a harmonium and synthesizers, and the way they incorporated those elements with the guitar playing was really good. At times, this album really reminded me of Ants From Up There by Black Country, New Road. This album had plenty of good songs on it; “The World’s Biggest Paving Slab,” “Broken Biscuits,” “This Could Be Texas,” “R&B,” and “The Best Tears of Your Life” were all really good, and each one offered up something different to the album as a whole. While I enjoyed this album, I don’t think it’s something I'd come back to. While I liked the band’s sound, I didn’t think they really offered up anything particularly new or innovating. On top of that, the songs that didn’t stand out to me felt a bit like filler, and I felt my interest in this album oscillating quite a bit over the course of its fifty minutes. I still think it was really good, but I’d just personally gravitate towards something else if I were in the mood for some indie rock. I think this was a cool contribution to the user list though; as an American, I often forget about the Mercury Prize, so this was a nice way for me to branch out.

Reminded me of a lot of things, along the late 90s, 2000s/2010s spectrum of American indie rock. But it had its own sound. Less enamored with the spoken wordish stuff as opposed to the actual singing, but I generally liked this pretty well.

Rating: 6/10 Best songs: I’mm not crying you’re crying

5/10. I thought at the start that I might like this, and ended up feeling pretty neutral.

Okey-dokey indie alt folks I'm good. These are fine thanks

Indie rock. Ni fu ni fa.

While i am enjoying the resurgence of this style of uk post punk music, this band just haven’t clicked with me yet. I’m sure they might in the future.

Some more Windmill Scene stuff. Good but ultimately pretty unremarkable. An extra shiny 3/5.

I may give this another listen. It was ok.

Fine 3

It’s been 24 hours and I can’t remember it. Just had a little recap and I think I didn’t hear what was special about this. Sorry.

This Could Be Texas is the sort of alt-indie bollocks I really don't like, some middle-class kids 'trying to find themselves' making art rock that isn't original or interesting or good, but it ticks the pretentious tickboxes and voila, here's a career. Anyway it's just boring, she's either doing spoken word or mumbling in a poorly-mixed vocal track, scrapes a 2 because objectively it isn't absolutely shit, I just can't stand this style of music.