“What is your job?”
The question came from the same concertgoer that has been barking obtuse, ask slightly tipsy questions at bands all night. The room was chuckling during Bent Shapes as the questioner danced around the bar, price both middle fingers up high to no one in particular. King of Cats nervously fluttered around their heckles as he did with any morsel of stage banter. Mars from Aye Nako genuinely looked uncomfortable (and rightfully so) when they asked to touch his guitar, mid-set. But when the question of occupation was thrown at Joanna Gruesome, singer/guitarist Owen Williams barely took a chuckle-filled second to respond.
“Guitar shredder,” Williams offered, “professional guitar shredder. None of that part-time shit for me.”
If there was any uncertainty over the state of Joanna Gruesome in 2015, their set (including Williams’ full-time confirmation) on Wednesday put the tough questions to eternal slumber.
Leading into Joanna Gruesome’s set, Boston’s own Bent Shapes opened with their brand of quirky guitar pop, envisioning a world where bands with earworm choruses can treat songs on the effects of social media without a trite “lol” or hashtag somewhere in the title.
Brighton-based (as in UK, not MA) King of Cats claimed the title of most beautifully divisive act of the night, creating fully palpable beats between the end of a song and nervous applause. The shock and awe laid mostly at the hands of brainchild Max Levy’s voice, which lands somewhere between the squeaks of pubescence and shrieking howls of a tortured spirit in pre-Halloween anticipation. Levy himself describes his delivery as “scratchy and yelpy” on his label’s Bandcamp, but adds that “scratchiness and yelpiness can be powerful and fun and pretty and horrible as much as regular beauty.” There’s credence to that belief and King of Cats truly shine when songs like “Ulcers” combine homespun indie pop with the horrible beauty of existence.
Brooklyn’s Aye Nako provided perfect contrast to the delicate King of Cats, abrasively charging through selections of this year’sThe Blackest Eye EP. Coming off of their phenomenal 2013 full-length Unleash Yourself, Aye Nako have shifted from snarky comments in a pop punky sheen to calculated, but necessary rage on Eye, their gaze now unquestionably focused on the current state of race, sexuality, and gender in society. It could’ve been the two busted tires they rolled into Boston on or the guitar strings that broke mid-set, but the undeterred urgency in their performance was on a nonstop build leading to closer “White Noise”. The Eye single offers a crass, but brilliant question to media’s coverage of race: “why cut out a cross section of our lives when I can wipe my ass with it?”
For the Gruesome uninitiated, Cardiff’s preeminent ambassadors of overly caffeinated jangle pop started the summer confidently with their sophomore LP Peanut Butter, a twenty minute blast of abrasively uplifting joy centered around Williams and Alanna McArdle’s sweetly interlocking vocals. Within a month of Peanut Butter’s release though, McArdle announced her departure from the group to tend to her mental health, splitting the vocal reins between Kate Stonestreet and Roxy Brennan. Although both singers are more than established in their own projects (Stonestreet fronts Pennycress, while Brennan has been a part of Trust Fund, Two White Cranes, and Grubs among many others), their US dates still had all the makings of a trial run for the (now) sextet.
Opening on Weird Sister favorite “Secret Surprise”, Greenstreet handled screaming their dreams of pulling out teeth, while Brennan took on the less sinister vocal work with Williams. Gruesome as a whole had their charm on full blast, giggling through banter on their fascination with Detroit and, yes, the occupation questioning. While one might gripe that the set ran relatively short at eight songs (five quick ones from Peanut, three from Sister), it’s damn near impossible to complain when they closed on an elongated version of “Sugarcrush”, featuring the six members (plus Levy from King of Cats) spread across the Middle East upstairs, bashing violent noise out of their respective instruments. Sure, “full-time shredders” are an admirable job title for Williams and Gruesome, but it takes a special band to make twenty-something minutes as inexplicably happy as a barrage of emojis tapped out on a sugar high.
For all photos from the show, check out our gallery below.
