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I’m not really a huge fan of Shoegaze.  In most instances the layering of elements to explore the sounds and melodies created from harmonies and dissonances don’t really do it for me.  It’s usually exotic and curious, but it’s the sort of modal experimentation that I’ll listen to once or twice as most of the emphasis is built upon the creation of sounds rather than on the creation of music.  There are, of course, exceptions to this, but for the most part Shoegaze is a genre that I don’t really get as anything other than an intellectual exercise.

My exposure to The Twilight Sad really came when a friend shot me a copy of Killed My Parents and Hit The Road, what was essentially a tour CD / compilation of uncollected tracks pulled together to finance their end of a tour with Mogwai.  I thought it was agreeable but it didn’t really jibe with me, he told me it was a new line of Shitgaze, essentially walls of noise drawing more from modern noise-rock than from Shoegaze.  I could see it, but it was really nothing more than a footnote to me because it was really quite different from what I was in to at the moment.

With that in mind, I didn’t check out their new album Forget the Night Ahead, though I had heard that the production was better than previous releases and that it was “darker” in tone and tenor.  I was attending the show last night with absolutely no expectations due to being barely familiar with We Were Promised Jetpacks and Brakes (brakesbrakesbrakes) who were also performing that night for the second of two local dates.

We made it to Bowery five minutes into We Were Promised Jetpacks and found the venue was packed.  Amazingly packed for the opening act.  We couldn’t really find a good place from which to watch and so we suffered with lowered sound quality and seeing the band or seeing the band and not hearing it very well.  We split the difference and moved after a song or two.

We Were Promised Jetpacks play music that is reliant on spatial awareness.  Using repetition in lyrics and juxtaposition of recurrent melodic elements as punctuation gives the audience a sort of subconscious awareness to the music that grants an additional layer to more than just chorus verse chorus verse bridge chorus end.

Adam, vocalist / guitarist, uses positioning to the microphone to great effect live, not afraid to move away himself from his greatest connection to the audience.   Starting some phrases away from the microphone then moving closer to get louder as the songs build and peak with a uncommon fury like a Greek orator shouting to the sea until he is washed out by the tide of melody and rhythm.  Each positioning seemed more determined by emotion of that moment than any calculation.

The music was frankly, staggering to behold, capturing a sound similar to other acts such as Frightened Rabbit, but not beholden to any precise style.  The lyrics in their songs give depictions of everyday life providing a degree of bleak despair that ties them more in line with folk than with traditional rock outfits.  We Were Promised Jetpacks were absolutely phenomenal and I implore you to seek them out if you get the chance to see them live.

Edwina was more familiar with Brakes (Brakesbrakesbrakes in the US due to a band name conflict) and it was their inclusion on the bill that made her eager to catch the show.  She spoke of their funnier songs such as Porcupine or Pineapple and Cheney, a blast of noise about Dick Cheney.  What she didn’t talk about much was the wit and strength of the band as they eased their way effortlessly through genres varying from disco to post-punk noise rock to instances of Eamon Hamilton on guitar just conversing directly with the audience.

The songs were put together easily enough, and never drowned out the vocals which was grand because even the songs which you’d expect to be throw away novelty tracks would usually contain bits of wit sung with great aplomb as Eamon would pull faces that brought to mind Woody Harrelson portraying Popeye the Sailor and gave every song a bit of a bitter angry undercurrent in the performance, though to assume that Eamon was the only band member of note is a mistake.  Tom White the guitarist managed to talk his brother, Alex, into performing a Soca drum solo that segued into the final three songs of their set.

Nearly every song was a stand out track and if I’d had the money, I would have cleaned out the merch table.  There are a number of videos of them on YouTube, and you could certainly find a worse way to spend a half hour than by going through them.

The audience that spent the Brakes set in the basement drinking came back upstairs for The Twilight Sad and once more we were crammed together.  Several eager faces packed in close proximity with a shared expectation of the set to come buzzed to one another as the clock ran past the expected 10:30 start time.  My only expectation was that the band would be loud, but I didn’t see how they’d be louder than the crowd’s approval as they stepped onstage and took their positions.

It’s hard to believe that this band could ever feel comfortable playing in a venue as small as Washington DC’s Black Cat Backstage, an area about half the size of Bowery’s downstairs bar.  From the first moments, with a handful of modulations packed with reverb and delays as though these first few notes were sounding out the room to see who would come along, there was a bit of a hushed quiet, and then the music quickly built as Graham’s strong voice held the now immense melodies in check gave way and it crashed over us.

Consonance and dissonance like twin tigers were turned loose and prowled every inch of Bowery Ballroom filling it and pressing against the walls, caged yet unrelenting in the need to escape.

I’m at a loss with regards to reviewing this band as I’m not overly familiar with their work, but it was at times astonishing and painful, evocative of primal forces and also being intensely tender, such as when Graham, the vocalist came into the audience and sang a song that had comparatively the barest of musical accompaniment.  Yet in this there were also a few missteps, which made the music sound as though it were perfect for selling cars to young people, forgettable wallpaper for youth.

These missteps were few though and the seventy-minute set with no encore was amazing and I began to get the appeal of “-gaze” music as more than just hormonal exercises.  It requires large, cavernous performance spaces and it requires volume.  Listening casually to this music is as though you were watching an Epic movie Pan and Scanned for television consumption intended as filler for the dull moments between soap commercials.

Category : Show Review