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Seekonk are a collection of impressive multi-instrumentalists who mostly play gentle, atmospheric music. The lead singer is a woman with a rich, lovely voice, and three of them sing backup at various times. There are some really pretty harmonies, but it's all kind of nice. A little bland and repetitive. I keep trying to get into it, since the musicianship is top-notch, but it's just too wussy to really hold my attention. The last song does achieve a certain quiet intensity, and the drummer even seems to wake up for a bit. I came in after they started, so I'm left to wonder what was up with the birdcage on the stage; they have so much equipment (at least three electric and two acoustic guitars, plus two keyboards and a drumkit) that I can't imagine they regularly cart something around that serves no purpose.
I'm here to see Shortfilm, who seem to scare away the Seekonk fans pretty quickly. I've missed their last couple of shows, and they've gotten impressively broader and deeper in that time. They start out rapid and jagged, which is how I remember them, and they do that really well. But they also have slow songs now: one that's kind of languid and tuneful, and really very pleasant. And another that's ploddingly, audience-torturingly slow, which is interesting and effective in a confrontational sort of way. Some of their stuff is also really catchy and fun, and everything is played really skillfully, with that mixture of brash appeal and secretly deep and subtle complexity that never fails to please me. They have some technical difficulties with dodgy mixes over the course of the set, but everything I can hear sounds great.
I wondered, going into the evening, where we could possibly go from there. As it turns out, Animal Closet are kind of a quirky power-pop trio. They start out sounding very middle-of-the-road, but as the set progresses they manage to confound most of my expectations as soon as I form them. The singer/guitarist is struggling with his allergies, so there's a lot of downtime between songs for tuning and endlessly apologizing, but the songs themselves are tuneful and energetic. Sunny melodies and screamy sections. It can feel a bit fragmented at times, but I kind of like being confused, and the playing is solid. I suspect that these tunes could grow on me if I heard them a few times.
