The hardest Parts
Within the first couple minutes of Parts & Labor‘s Constant Future (Jagjaguwar), a surge of electronic and other malfunctioning noises conspire to produce something that sounds almost like a crowd cheering. On closer inspection, it’s clearly not, but the timing makes it feel like spontaneous applause to cheer the band on. What makes that plausible is, like Wolf Parade, the clattering that echoes through Parts & Labor’s music doesn’t inhibit the pop songcraft, yet neither does it contain the gimmicky elements that make repeated shoegaze revivals such a drag. (Wednesday@Empty Bottle with Call Me Lightning and Child Bite.)
Miss Alex White has been banging her head on her amp for the better part of a decade, while White Stripes doppelgangers have come and gone. Her latest project, White Mystery, she formed with her brother Francis and it retains the slapdash feel she oozes. A two-show release party is on tap this week, and Blood & Venom quite capably recreates their live presence, rendering one of the recorded or live version somewhat redundant. Rather hilariously, the drums and guitar sound as if they were tracked in the same room, while the pair’s vocals could have been ripped from two different decades and sewn together. When Alex adds a third part on the bursting “Dead Inside,” your brain won’t know which way to turn. (Wednesday@Panchos with Loose Dudes and Close Hits or Rabble Rabble and Slushy.)
— Steve Forstneger
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
