The Hard Quartet
Live 3/28/25 Warsaw
Brooklyn, NYC
On a calm spring night in New York City, The Hard Quartet pulled into their hometown supporting their excellent debut, self-titled release. Opening the night were Loosey and Sharp Pins, who unfortunately RtBE missed, however the headliners had the house mostly filled when they took the stage around 10pm.
The band of Stephen Malkmus, Matt Sweeney, Jim White, and Emmett Kelly seem to genuinely be having a blast rolling out their languid indie rock like a supped-up bar band that is doing it for fun, on a slightly higher level than most. The group stuck closely to their debut album released on Matador Records last year which RtBE loved and rated highly during our 2024 recap.
On this night The Hard Quartet didn't vary up their sound much, the jams stayed mostly as they were recorded as did their shorter tighter outings. The shaggy, relaxed rock of "Heel Highway" opened the night and set the tone as the trio of Malkmus, Sweeney and Kelly all switch up on bass, guitars and lead vocals as each gets a crack at everything, while White holds down the drums expertly.
An early highlight was the beautiful "Rio's Song" which was delivered quickly and gorgeously. For the most part the front half of the show was focused on the tighter tunes while the slightly longer jam outings were saved for the second half. The crunchy "Earth Hater" buzzed while "Killed By Death" was some tasty, vibrating country tinged rock and roll. In that same vein, the Byrds influenced "Our Hometown Boy" was a gem of cosmic canyon sounding '60's rock charm.
Perhaps the best offering of the night was actually not from their album as "Lies (Something You Can Do)" was kept off the record, but on this evening it was blast. The tune is propelled by White's drumming while screeching and pleading guitars cycle up and down scales with joyful glee. A real winning effort all around.
"Action For Military Boys" had some prog-rock like changes while a trio of tunes "North of the Border" "Gripping the Riptide" and "Thug Dynasty" in the second half of the show flashed influences from the likes of Neil Young and The Velvet Underground, mixing noisy feedback and languid parts, but overall felt a bit sluggish, never really expanding horizons, soaring, or getting too psychedelic.
However, the show snapped to attention with the final song of the set, "Chrome Mess", as the players locked in. Malkmus' soloing built energetically while Sweeney and Kelly jammed around him and White drove everything forward. It was a solid end to a fine set of indie rock which saw no encore on this stop in Greenpoint's gorgeous club Warsaw.
_______
Support the artists and peep some video below:
Support the artists and peep some video below:
No comments:
Post a Comment