About a year ago, I went to see almost exactly this same bill at the MHOW: it was Holy Fuck's first headlining show at a venue of that size in New York, and A Place To Bury Strangers were on their way up. That show was my favorite concert of 2008, with a wonderful combination of blissed out, punishing noise rock and super energetic, man with machine dance music. There was also a good crowd that night, with lots of folks eager to get their groove on, which they did.

Fastforward to last night: after last year's smashing success, I've been looking forward to this show for months, and I wasn't dissapointed. A Place to Bury Strangers have now spent a good amount of time on the road, and their live act has become tighter and even more pummeling. It's a pretty rare band that makes their own effects pedals, and then uses them so expertly. Their wave of vicious, enveloping sound finds just the right balance between ear splitting sonic confrontation and trance-inducing atmospheric groove. This is all locked down by highly compressed machine gun style drums that you might mistake for a drum machine, if you didn't see a man behind the kit making it all happen. Naturally, their set is at volumes that are clearly not safe for you ears, but when it ended I was sad it didn't last longer. This band continues to get better, and to be honest, should be (and I imagine will be) headlining whenever they play in NYC.

Holy Fuck brought a good game, mixing in some new material with good success. If anything, their set was a little top heavy, with the second half not quite as strong as the first. But overall, their unique take on electronic music is still very danceable and entertaining.

What makes this bill so compelling to me is that both bands are at the front of the curve in terms of successfully taking very electronic, machine sounds and channeling them in ways that are still very human. APTBS's take is definitely darker and more mysterious than the HF's optimistic dance party, but both bands have impeccable taste in non-organic sounds. Whether it's treble saturated frequency and time shifting, or just well-formed mechanical tones imbued with rhythm, this bill had many aural pleasures on offer for people who are into uncommon noise.

Labels: A Place to Bury Strangers, Concert Reviews, Holy Fuck

The Antlers @ Music Hall of Williamsburg from Patrick Duffy on Vimeo.

My summer concert season officially kicked off last night, and what a start it was: three good bands (all in various stages of up-and-coming, my favorite kind), my favorite venue that I'd not been to in quite some time (the inimitable Bowery), and as an added bonus, an excellent pre-game loft party in Union Square (compliments of my friend at Sonic Union, which is a beautiful post-production house with lots of beautiful friends).

First up was newly-signed French Kiss act The Antlers: if you've not heard of, or heard them, yet, get ready to start hearing about them quite a bit. The Antlers are really the project-turned band of a young, talented NYC transplant named Peter Silberman, who did a good job finding like minded musicians to flesh out his ethereal, Jeff Buckley-esque electric folk. When I say Jeff Buckley-esque, it's specifically his high, weepy vibrato, his jangly, reverb laden fender guitar, and an emphasis on creating emotionally charged atmospherics. While you'll notice the similarities quickly, it's a different mood and style than the aforementioned dead rock star. You won't feel that it's too derivative or contrived. I've been listening to their self-released record Hospice for a while now, and it's grown on me quite a bit. It's also going to see re-release with much wider distribution soon. What really sold me on the band, however, was seeing them live last night: they were cool, collected and totally on point. They have the wonderful quality of restraint in their instrumentation that so many bands never really achieve, especially live, and sounded wonderfully crisp because of it. The singer, despite spending a great deal of time in falsetto or near it, managed to not sound like a whiny bitch better than 90% of the time, which I consider to be an immense success. Check them out, they're heading out on tour with Au Revoir Simone right now.

Cymbals Eat Guitars, another band seeing pretty decent success off of a single, self-released record (the solid and worthwhile Why There Are Mountains) played middle. The thing that made the Antlers so good before them, restraint, is something this band could stand to learn from. They came out blazing, entirely too loud and muddy (though the soundman did an ace job of fixing them up by the end of the set), lots of energy but not quite sure where best to use it. Their set was everything the record is, except more exagerated: complete and total Pavement/Sonic Youth worship/masturbation; awkward, almost unfortunately sincere dorkiness, pretension, and earnest excitement. I can see this band being quite good after a little more seasoning, they've got the chops and heroes that I also spend time worshiping, they just need a little more comfort in their own skin and the presence that comes with it.

I've enjoyed seeing White Rabbits steadily climb up a few rungs: they've gone from playing sparsely attended Mercury Lounge shows to selling out the Bowery for their record release show for their sophomore record. Wherever I've seen them, and for any size audience, they've always been a tight, focused and highly enjoyable live band. I'd not seen them in a while, and after a year or so on the road, they're still all those things, just more comfortable. Their set was split evenly between the new record, It's Frightening, and last year's debut Fort Nightly. The new record was produced by Britt Daniel from Spoon, and you can absolutely hear the influence in both the songwriting and instrumentation, to pleasing affect. The qualities that make them good live (tight, executed polyrhythms, spot on harmonizing and loads of energy) where all in abundance last night. I'm looking forward to spending more time with the new record, and would comfortably label this band as a definitely-go-see when they come to your town.

Labels: Concert Reviews, Cymbals Eat Guitars, The Antlers, White Rabbits