Live: This Will Destroy You @ Mercury Lounge 6.9.10 early

The Summer tour season always bodes well for those that live in Gotham City, as pretty much everyone comes through in some shape or form. This show came initially in conflict with the Austin Lucas dates in town, but the Fates made this a rare early show, and at Mercury Lounge to boot, so I posted up with Evan and Aaron.

I like TWDY ok. I had seen them at the old Knit last year and thought they were decent, but all too obviously playing a lane already covered more than adequately (and in not too terribly exciting fashion, frankly) by Explosions In The Sky. The fact that they are both from the same area does little to dispel this notion and begs the question why they haven't tried to put a different spin on things. Frankly, that is the first of many questions I have about the team, among them: Why does the other guitar dude always sit? and Is it really imperative that the drummer play to a click? They aren't that technical and the Strat guy certainly is no Derek Bailey. Whatever, I'm probably just a dick.

I don't expect that most of the crowd got as deep with their analysis, as it seemed 75% Texan ex-pat friends of the band who don't listen to (m)any other music from the genre. Safe money is on a disproportionately large per capita percentage of American Analog Set records being owned by the crowd. Crowd patriation aside, TWDY went over well, playing a handful of songs from their last couple releases and ending with the addition of a 100% extraneous violin player and a jam that featured at least one of the band members packing his gear for most of its duration. Worked for me, as it was over before 9 and my bike wasn't stolen at the end of the evening, allowing for me to ride uptown in a early Summer monsoon and see Austin Lucas with some degree of ease. Call that a win. This Will Destroy You may have some new release soon, but the sheer volume of photos of animals with dumb photoshopping and conspicuous iPaddery drove me from their web presence in short order. Venture yourself if you dare.

Live: This Will Destroy You with Lymbyc System @ Knit 9.17.8

So I had to work and missed going out to see this show at Union Pool on Monday night. In retrospect, really no great loss. I already had a ticket for the show at the Knit and I'm trying to get there as much as possible before it moves out to fucking Brooklyn like everything else in this town.

So that I might be as cranky as possible, the good folk of the Knit were nice enough to change the order around and make TWDY the headliner, so my arrival turned into a drive-by and prompted a spate of texts and calls to inform the troops, most of whom showed right as I left. At least they have their youth, I guess.

I arrived at the Knitting Factory multiplex and headed to the Tap Room to catch the end of Lymbyc System's set. They represent for the two-piece band end of things (bad idea) and evidently the Lollipop Guild as well. The boys are short and the sitting doesn't help when it comes to visual excitement. Vertical challenges aside, the music's good: the drummer can drum, keyboard leads not too irritating, pleasant absence of drama school reject on 'vocalizations' as per the norm on the Eastern Seaboard. All in all, a good time, plus Heath likes them, so they are probably better than the two decent songs I saw.

This Will Destroy You hit the stage pretty quickly, and hit most of the audience loading in. I personally was hit with every piece of the drum kit as it made it's way to the stage. Not to brag, or anything. After way too long of a soundcheck, the boys set to deafening the room. I enjoy a lot of the post-rock that kids like Explosions In The Sky purvey, but it's hardly the most fun in the world to watch. The quiet/loud with a six minute build-up can be spectacular if you're making the monster with two backs or cycling, but when it happens over and over, the redundencies do become that more obvious. I assume they will be moving to bigger rooms with more visual elements soon, but it was a little lacking on a Tap Room level.

This Will Destroy You and Lymbyc System are on tour for another week or so, then TWDY jump across the pond to party in Europe for most of October. Check out the dates and buy some stuff here.

R

Some Things Bitchin', Soon To Come

It's going to be an interesting week, kids. I can almost guarantee that both of my readers will be pretty close to entertained. As the feast/famine pendulum swings towards the positive as it regards live rocking, there happens to be a lot of good live stuff to be had this week: two nights of This Will Destroy You; Opeth and High On Fire; Hold Steady and Pretenders. Seeing so much always looks good on paper, but any time you can get four Mats records with bonus tracks in your grubby little paws for the down time, you should revel in such delights.

Look forward to:

1. A four part review retrospective of the the new Rhino reissues of The Replacements' Sire catalog. That's Tim, Pleased To Meet Me, Don't Tell A Soul and All Shook Down, for the uninitiated. New art (boo!), liner notes from Jesperson and the like (yeah!), along with some pertinent bonus tracks comprised of alternate takes, remixes, studio fuck-ups and the like. 

2. Reviews of tomorrow night and Tuesday's This Will Destroy You/Lymbyc System shows.

3. Review of the Opeth/High On Fire show on Thursday.

4. Review of the Pretenders/Hold Steady show at Sonar in Baltimore.

This Will Destroy You

Texas is a weird place. But not necessarily a bad place, regardless of what knee-jerk rich-kid college politicos might lead you to believe. It’s bigger, and consequently so are the egos and companion prick-ery, but go to LA for a long weekend and tell me which one you prefer. Getting back to the whole big thing, lots of things are bigger in Texas: LBJ’s cock, Brahma bulls, and, of course, the rock. This Will Destroy You is not the big rock from Texas that ZZ Top is, moreso the wide-open grandeur that is Explosions In The Sky, but they leave a Texas-sized impression with their eponymous debut.

I’m sure both parties are getting tired of the comparisons, but when you have the unlikely success that Explosions have, one party better be grateful that somebody cares after eight years and the other should be damn happy that the door was held open for them. Not that there’s any beef between the two and with Explosions going on extended hiatus, I suspect a torch may very be passed.

The last two years have been prosperous ones for Team TWDY. Their dazzlingly cinematic sound has been used in a host of documentary works and even popped up in a Pentagon briefing video. How’s that for placement? It’s not Friday Night Lights, but it certainly gets the tongues wagging. All the talking is in danger of overshadowing the music, which really is wonderful. And beautiful, too. TWDY use dynamics and space masterfully. It’s obvious that there is someone, if not all of them, in the franchise that is familiar with composition and scoring.

Magic Bullet sure have scored with this one. They have always been known for working with innovative artists, but this is definitely a record that I can see bringing a lot more people toward their catalog. This Will Destroy You have geared up for some serious road work behind their first full-length. and I can’t think that it’s not going to bear fruit for them. For once it seems to be happening for the good guys. This Will Destroy You is not for everyone, but in an ideal world it would be.

This Will Destroy You will be on tour with Lymbyc System in September. Check them out in Brooklyn on 9/15 at Union Hall and 9/16 in Manhattan at the Knit. Tix are $8 in advance.

www.myspace.com/thiswilldestroyyou
www.magicbulletrecords.com