Six years ago, Steve Troum was a Southlake hand surgeon with a yen to take his longtime love of songwriting to the next level. Now, he’s also the frontman for Fort Worth indie trio The Troumatics, who have just released their sophomore album. Keep on Flowing consists of 10 original songs portraying a dysfunctional world over a soundtrack of ’90s college alt-rock.
This record takes a different tack than The Troumatics’ first effort, 2023’s Watch Me Burn.
Keep on Flowing is “a little bit more of a concept album,” Troum said, “and the subject matter is a little darker. On the first album, a lot of the songs were about relationships, girls or whatever.”
For 2025, Troum mostly left romance behind to focus on worries about the pandemic, misinformation, political conflicts, generational rivalries, and top-down societal rot.
While the music is mostly up-tempo and fun to listen to, the spotlight is on that somber messaging. This album is built on expressive writing more than danceable beats, shimmering guitar licks, or ear-grabbing vocals.
“Front and center is going to be the melody and the lyrics,” Troum said. “That’s what drives the song.”
Individual tracks were separately recorded in various locations by one of several different well-known producers, including Todd Pipes (Deep Blue Something, Flickerstick, Drowning Pool), Taylor Tatsch (Maren Morris, Cut Throat Finches, Shadows of Jets), and Joe Tacke (Mean Motor Scooter, Uncle Toasty). While Troum handles all the guitar and lead vocals, other band personnel also varied. On most, bassist Wyatt Webb — another physician — and drummer Dan Elliot provided rhythm and background vocals. A few songs have contributions from Pipes on bass as well as previous members of the band’s rhythm section.
Leadoff track “I Am a River” contributes the album title from one of its lyrics. It starts with a catchy guitar riff and features some psychedelic feedback in the background, then urges listeners to stay strong and true despite twisted media portrayals of events and issues. “All these facts are not as they seem,” Troum sings, “More trash thrown in my stream.”
For “Cigarette Love,” Troum varies from the album’s romance-free theme with a love song about a nerdy guy hooked on a tough girl. With promises like “I swear I’ll be there to save you with my love,” it shows the songwriter’s more hopeful side.
The darkness descends again with “Why This World.” A drum intro segues into lyrics describing how powerful elites stall real change for the better. “Who Is On the Outside (feat ItsErnie)” — possibly the record’s standout track — features hip-hop artist ItsErnie splitting verses with Troum on how ordinary people are helpless to make things better. “What’s the opposite of progress? Congress!” ItsErnie raps in one ripped-from-the-headlines lyric.
If you’ve ever noticed how yesterday’s rebels morph into today’s reactionaries, you’ll get “History Echoing.” Troum warns Gen Zs complaining about Boomers, “When you meet the next generation, they’ll point to you just the same.” The track also features a tasty if brief guitar solo, one of Troum’s few steps away from steady rhythm work on this record.
There’s one cover, an able rendition of “Sympathy for the Devil.” Troum left that one off the digital release, which follows “Chloroform,” an out-there vision of dosing everyone with the antique anesthetic in the hope that, when we awoke, we’d get along better. The song makes good use of harmonica riffs and wah pedal to vary from the rhythmic strumming that dominates most tracks.
“Civil War” is a bit more hopeful, suggesting that we might be able to overcome our current political division. Maybe. Or maybe the nonsense refrain — “Woo-hoo-hoo la-la-la oh yeah” — tells us how Troum views the real chances of that happening.
And just in case the album’s darkness overwhelms, Troum offers an escape with a couple of drinking songs. “Raise Yer Glass” is a rowdy shouter he says was influenced by pub drinking songs from a century ago. “Whiskey Christmas” takes a similar approach in the context of the year-end holiday.
Troum and the band he formed in 2019 have put together a solid sophomore effort that could provide a springboard to greater things. Several singles that Troum released separately are already getting airplay, especially on college stations. That’s similar to the band’s first album. What’s different this time is that The Troumatics are getting some real recognition that may put them into a place that the Troum from six years ago could hardly have imagined.
