Pianos on a Friday night is a strange place to be. The bar portion, which one has to traverse in order to get to the venue in the back, was on this particular night full of well-dressed, well-off types making loud conversation. The actual performance space, which had added a bar since the last time I saw a show there, had a more recognizably rock-show crowd in attendance. The main draw for me on this particular night was Boston’s Pretty & Nice, whose upcoming Get Young has been stuck in my head in an almost insidious manner since I first heard it.
Playing when I got there were Piegons. I knew nothing about them save that they feature members of Sea Donkeys, about whom I likewise know very little. Whatever I was expecting, though, bore little resemblance to the group onstage: abstract, brittle guitar lines and a general sense of unease. Definitely something that hearkens back to a more bracing era of indie rock; my brain kept flashing “THE SONORA PINE” even though I’m not entirely sure I remember what The Sonora Pine sound like.
(Subsequent research has indicated that Pigeons did, in fact, play the Yeti release party I attended a few months ago. Which may point to larger issues with my memory than simply a Sonora Pine-sized hole therein, or may indicate a more memorable set on this night than back in May.)
Air Bombay were up next. I don’t have too much to say about them, to be honest: they mentioned from the stage that it was their second show, and they did have the sound of a band in their nascent stages. Much of the crowd enjoyed what they were playing, and there was a good, loose, poppy feel to much of their set.
Pretty & Nice toss a change-up at you when you first listen to Get Young, their second album overall. They’re a four-piece fond of giant-sized pop hooks and even quick forays into Vocoder use. And so Get Young opens with…a thick, bristling, fuzzed-out guitar sound; it’s from there that they shift into their catchier mode. This isn’t to say that there isn’t an edge to that pop: there’s as much Braniac/Enon sinew present as there are Squeeze/XTC hooks. And that, I’d say, is their strength: not in reinventing pop but by running noisier elements through a fairly classic sound and leaving in so much unabashed joy. That basic sound differs little between rock club and recording studio, which is a plus. Another plus in the live setting comes from the group’s onstage banter, which may yet give Mike Pace a run for his money in the surreal self-deprecation department. Fine stuff all around.
