Klingman's voice moved from a near-whisper to a high falsetto and back to his familiar passionate-pleading delivery, while Victoria tickled the cymbals and added a snare-less drum thump. David crunched out muscular chords and gentle melodic note patterns until unleashing a full-on strum throttling. It's four and a half minutes of pure sonic bliss.
For "Morning Light" the band switched instruments again. Klingman moved back to guitar, this time picking up his semi-hollow body electric (which gives just the right amount of feedback necessary for this song). Reiss then moved over to drums and Cecilia picked up her bass. Klingman and Cecilia sang much of this in unison and I'm reminded a bit of how Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo of the Raveonettes do this. Reiss struck a drum-kit mounted tambourine quite a bit on this one, giving that overall Spector-sonic feel to it all.
Sticking with the same instrument configuration, the band then played "Anybody Inside." This one gives Klingman an opportunity to stretch out on the guitar. Of particular note are these three downbeats they all hit in unison, providing a solid musical punctuation to an otherwise wide open, flowing song.
"Beauty" featured a gorgeously lush chorus, and Klingman’s carefully mapped-out guitar licks show just how truly melodic this band is.
After another instrument change "Love Songs" is one of those numbers that may initially appear to be an ‘end of album’ track, but in fact stands out exceptionally in the live environment. It's tempo changes kept the listener active, and the band attacked it more ferociously than the recorded version. Of note is Reiss' manic hyper-speed guitar strumming towards the end of the song.
For the final song of the night, the band went back to their debt album, "Love The Virgins,” for a solid version of "Blue Sky." |
