BrightestYoungThings: MuteMath/As Tall As Lions @ Sixth & I

All words: Phil Cohen
All photos: (source)

I’m pretty sure no one’s ever left a MuteMath show disappointed. Not that this is necessarily music that everyone’s gonna like but chances are, if you’re willing to plop down 15-odd dollars and don’t mind lyrics about not knowing what to feel because nothing is real and flying on the wings of eagles (!), you’re gonna get your money’s worth because the sheer pomposity and grandeur with which this band performs makes U2 look like Bon Iver. For real.

Mute Math

But before all that stuff happened, As Tall As Lions played a set. And it was kind of weird? Their singer Dan, who’s apparently been having some throat issues as of late, was noticeably absent from the line-up at first, leaving Julio the Bassfucker ™ (I call him that because he oftentimes looks as though he’s fucking his bass) as frontman. Oddly, though he’s got a voice as well (in fact, his “You Can’t Take It With You” is the best song off their newish album of the same name), he didn’t sing more than a few tossed-off, probably improvised lines the entire time. What we were left with was a driving, instrumental set that the audience seemed to be into for the most part. The problem with this is that the band clearly went on stage with no set material and decided to just kick out the dirty jams. While the jams were indeed dirty, there’s only so many times you can listen to a grungy bass riff turn into an marathon rock-out sesh, augmented by the same, huge beat (albeit a very skillfully-played one) from their god of a drummer before it starts to get old. Really, you can? Turns out yes, you can. Julio also seemed to overly rely on that trick of synchronizing the bass with weird, jerky crashes of rhythm and it only worked approximately 70% of the time, which just makes it kind of lame.

l_630360b2927d4d9aa57b2b0e6364c480
But I like this band! And I’ve seen them countless times, which means I’m endeared to each and every one of them (I’m talking about you, Justin Long-alike and trumpet player who looks like Zach from The Whitest Kids U Know). I just really like their songs, which is I guess the reason that bands go on tour with a pre-determined repertoire of stuff they plan on playing. Thus, I may or may not have squealed like a little girl when Dan emerged from the shadows of stage left, clad in a cardigan and the appearance of someone who’d just been run over by a steamroller, to sing some songs. Sure, there was a grand total of two of them, but at least that included “Stab City,” their moneymaker, and “See The Love,” one of the better new ones. While this probably wasn’t the best show to catch them during as a first impression, normally they tear shit up so if ever presented with the chance, it’s money well spent.

Speaking of money well spent, holy fuck. Who knew Mute Math were capable of this? Well, I kind of did, which is why I was so stoked. On their first album, they had a tendency to come off sounding a bit like Sting if he traveled to the year 2030 and constructed songs solely out of guitar loops from the Edge. But any live music fan worth their salt these days knows this is one of those bands you don’t miss if they come through and I’m glad I didn’t. First of all, Sixth and I? Awesome. I’d never been there but it does my people proud to watch an ex-Christian band get what’s possibly the best sound out of any show they’ve ever played from a synagogue. Yeah, what they’re saying isn’t always the most interesting stuff, but who the fuck listens to lyrics these days anyway? Especially with a band like this. As soon as singer Paul Meany launched into “The Nerve,” it was clear he laughs in the face of Auto-Tune, if Auto-Tune was a person that had a face. Man’s got pipes!

l_d920b4995ae64647bcc7ba77c040023f
Everyone knows what the fuck they’re doing: the bassist kind of looks like Jesus with sunglasses and a vest but alternates between delaying the shit out of his electric four-string and occasionally busting out a monstrous double bass for the jazzier stuff. And it’s not just for show! He puts it to good use! The drummer duct tapes his headphones around his head because they might fall off during his playing because it is so intense! But it is! It would be easy to call a band out on being so over-the-top but when they deliver like this, you can only stand in astonishment. One song sounded The Police performing in a rave. One song saw Meany doing backflips and cartwheels over his organ. During the finale, the band passed around this weird, homemade instrument that kind of looked like an ecto-blaster from Ghostbusters and let the audience play it. You can be a stoic, unemotive douchebag at one of their shows but you’d for real be the only one in the room. These band members were superheroes last night. They do what they do exceptionally well and with a shit ton of pizzazz. Who doesn’t like pizzazz? During some of the shittiest weather in recent memory, I was inside a temple on a Wednesday night, watching a group of formerly evangelical rockstars hit exactly the right notes. Loud, showy and epic; I just described the perfect show. And it was.

Brightest Young Things

Live DC

MuteMath/As Tall As Lions @ Sixth & I

THURSDAY 3/8

Pat Green @ 9:30 Club

Previously in Live DC:

COMMENTS (1)

Comment

About this Article

Author

Phil!