The Blood Brothers ravaged the Black Cat last Wednesday night, proving that good music doesn't go out of style. Openers Chinese Stars and Celebration were interesting and frustrating, respectfully.
Chinese Stars features members of the disbanded underground act Six Finger Satellite, and while the band is certainly evocative of the discordant and catchy atonal guitar sounds of SFS, its guitar tones are more encrusted with Blood Brothers-style filth as opposed to the electronica-disco sheen of SFS.
Celebration, on the other hand, is maddening in the sense that it is disco-party punk that, despite featuring an amazing drummer, falls flat on its face thanks to stock-still band members and a horrible singer. The band is a trio, which means if it were to truly start the party its music is meant for, the trio would have to be pretty convincing onstage. Two of the members played their instruments sitting down for the whole set (the organist and the drummer) and the one member that stood didn't dance all that much, killing any potential excitement in the crowd. The song that closed the band's set featured quite a few members of the Blood Brothers on various forms of percussion and ended up being the best song of the set, only because it was so lively. In any case, both acts certainly whet the audience's pallet for the sonic barrage that the Blood Brothers were sure to administer.
The Blood Brothers is what some music elitists might describe as old news. The band is five albums into its career, with the height of its popularity and blog hype (which seems to get bands popular these days) coinciding with its third and fourth albums, 2003's "Burn Piano Island Burn" and 2004's "Crimes." The band is currently riding a barely ripple-sized wave of hype from its fall 2006 album "Young Machetes," which, although featuring some decent songs, generally got average reviews. Although in theory this seems like the recipe for a relatively unsuccessful tour, it was actually a blessing in disguise. Instead of being overrun by faddish fans, it was full to the brim of true blue Blood Brothers devotees.
Judging by the Blood Brother's signature combination of blood curdling high pitched screaming and aggressive yet innovative guitar work, it would be rather safe to say that the audience was not prepared to be sedentary during the performance. Sure enough, the crowd was evenly divided with the front half constantly slamming into each other in a flailing-around-without-fighting pit. The moderate yet respectable crowd provided adequate room for any style of dancing or standing still, so that everyone could be in exactly the concert going situation they most preferred. As expected, the moshers made it quite clear that because this was the Blood Brothers, they most certainly preferred to mosh.
The unbridled enthusiasm that swept the floor translated directly to the stage. The Blood Brothers' two front men, Jordan Blilie and Johnny Whitney, fed off this energy, as they charged about the stage, screaming the grotesque poetry that has become characteristic of the Blood Brothers' lyrics. The rest of the band was also energetic, but the singers were most certainly the focus of the show.
The band started out with "Guitarmy," the first track from "Burn Piano Island Burn." It clocks in at well under a minute of intensity, although the band stopped for no breaks as it proceeded to charge into "Ambulance Vs. Ambulance." The set also featured a few songs from their most recent albums, such as "Rats and Rats and Rats for Candy," which features a stylistic departure for the band in the form of a very meringue-sounding guitar riff.
The set was almost nonstop energy and seemed to go by in a flash, featuring only the best of the band's catalogue. But there is absolutely no room for complaint, as the show ended with a single song for the encore: an extended version of "Cecelia and the Silhouette Saloon," which happens to be arguably the best Blood Brothers song. It was by far the highlight of the evening and closed it well.
