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My love for La Faccia Brutta is encapsulated in one sterling measure of their first song. We've already enjoyed punky, shout-spoken parts and a sparsely pretty guitar line when Kamiko launches a series of shrieks that each modulate into high, sweet, delicate singing. This is what I love about this band: they are forever mixing it up. They handle slow, pretty, arty meandering with the same facility as big, anthemic, Hüsker Dü-style fast, melodic punk songs. (The bassist sings strong, urgent backup on these.) The keyboard parts are tasty and work well with the guitars, which trade leads. (The sparsely pretty ones are Kamiko's, while Cameron's are more involved rockers.) They cover a huge range and do it all well.
The 8mm Fuzz are really not to my taste at all. The singer's got that tortured Robert Smith tone to his voice. The drumming is all thumping "dance music" two-beats that drive me nuts, and he's not very steady, rushing and dragging and getting lost in the trickier fills. (There's also drum machine on some songs, about which the less said the better.) The blaring keyboard parts come out of nowhere and run roughshod over the simple guitar lines, and I barely make it through three songs before I flee outside to wait them out. There are elements that I like: the bass lines are interesting and she has a monster tone, and there's a cool bit at the beginning where the keyboard player samples a bit of the singer's vocal and uses it as his patch for the first song. But it's not enough for me to get past the many ways in which they're focused on what I hate about music. Does Boston really need its own version of The Bravery?
Many people apparently think so, since they draw the thickest crowd of the night. (I don't understand people.) A lot of them leave before Swim Team start, which is a shame. They start out with kind of a weird spoken word song, but their subsequent pieces are almost entirely sung. They're kind of a loose, quirky pop band, with good dynamic shifts that keep their songs from feeling too safe. They're catchy, and the harmonies are charming, but some of the guitar parts are actively weird. Throw in strong bass lines and good, varied drum patterns and you have a fine balance between interesting and accessible. (At least I think so.)
Bulletproof Plan close out the night quite late, but a bunch of us have come to see them and weren't going to leave until they played. They're a three-piece, and their songs are kind of straightforward, tuneful indie rock. The rhythm section is heavy and propulsive, and the vocals just soar over it; Eric has a clear, strong voice that reminds me at some times of Stan Ridgway and at others of Maynard James Keenan, both talented singers with a lot of personality. The guitar parts are a little too strummy for my tastes—his single-note stuff is good when he does it, and I'd like to hear more—but that just shifts my attention to the vocal melodies, which hold it nicely. Since it's a late night, they try to cut their set quite short, but the audience is having none of that, and we make them play two more before we let them drive back to Rhode Island.
