Just before the kickoff of the Common Cents music festival on Oct. 3, I had the pleasure of interviewing headliner Faye Webster in the corner of a Ryder Hall classroom. With her team and band jovially playing Hangman in the background almost the full duration of our interview, Faye was in great spirits and eager to perform. Despite some distractions (Faye received a call from an Atlanta number and immediately assumed it was someone calling to tell her that her dog had run away), we were able to compile a great introduction to her work for anyone not familiar, and some fascinating facts for the fans.

Archie O’Connell: You performed at the All Things Go music festival two days ago, and had a massive marble bust of your face on stage with you. How was the festival, and what’s the deal with the statue?

Faye Webster: It was very chill. I like smaller festivals. They aren’t so high maintenance, and they form more of a community vibe… You get to see everyone and watch the acts! Major festivals are awesome, but they’re so much more spread out.

The bust is a balloon! it’s inflatable, like a car dealership guy. We don’t have it today, we were scared because it’s so windy, it might fall. When I made this orchestral EP[

], I worked with my brother on the visuals – merch, album artwork, everything involved, and when we finally got to listen to it after we recorded it, it felt very elegant, and we were kind of inspired by a bunch of a Beethoven stuff. So, we designed the marble bust, and made the balloon!

 – what were some parts of the process that stood out to you?

One really cool thing is what the guy who wrote the sheet music and arranged the orchestra for 

 did: every song is arranged with an intro of another one of my songs. “Kind Of (Type of a Way),” which is my favorite song on the album, is intro’d with “Better Distractions.” The next song is introduced with “Kingston,” for a brilliant disney-esque feel.

Looking at your upcoming tour schedule, it seems to be a solid mix of festivals and headlining shows. Do you have any preference between the two?

I like a good mix – I like going on headlining tours, but I like playing festivals in between; it’s very refreshing to go back and forth between the two. There’s an artist area at most festivals, and it forms a wonderful community of everyone performing, but then it’s so nice to go back to performing just with myself, but then when I go back it’s refreshing again, it’s great.

I feel like when I’m on tour is the only time people have my full attention, which is when I find out about new stuff, which is nice. I’ll find out about new artists when I see them at festivals, and then my boyfriend will be like, “Faye! I’ve tried to show you this dozens of times!”

Last year, we played Mexico and I watched Turnstile, and I was obsessed. My first year at Bonnaroo, I saw the Lemon Twigs, and I was in a trance. Besides that, I don’t really keep up with new music. I do like the Drain Gang— Ecco2k is my favorite. I tour all the time and when I’m on tour I’m pretty much always around music, so when I go home to Atlanta, it’s nice to just sit in silence.

Yes! It’s crazy watching the show and recognizing all of the locations. I love it.

Personally no, but I know someone who’s surrounded by ghosts all the time, and she’ll show me video footage from cameras or pictures from her phone of ghosts, so I guess I have. One time she showed me a video where there were floating orbs. I haven’t seen any myself, but she has.

In an interview you did with Pitchfork, you remarked that you spend more time on video games than music – is this true?

I definitely spend more time playing video games than music. Definitely. I got really into Katamari— I even bought the soundtrack on vinyl, it’s the most beautiful thing ever. Stuff like that inspires me. I’ve been playing Hatsune Miku Project DIVA— all of her songs are on there, and you can sing along to them. She’s my favorite popstar by far. Pokemon, Animal Crossing, all that stuff. Most of my hours are on Rocket League, though. It’s an entirely different world on there, I love it.

I do. I have two, it depends on my mood. My favorite is Mawile, when I feel weak and vulnerable and I need protection, and then my other favorite is Togepi, when I feel very loving and full of affection. Mawile gets no screen time, but I love the design, she reminds me of a Guilty Gear character, it’s really sick. She’s also really pretty!!

Would you consider the people you’ve been playing shows with to be part of the Faye Webster Band, or moreso session musicians?

This is the band!!! Pistol [the steel guitarist] and I have been playing here for eight years. I needed a pedal steel player, and he was the only guy within 200 miles [band erupts into laughter] and we just clicked! Annie [the violinist] has played strings on all of my records – she’s just a music genius. We’ve started taking her on tour, I consume her life now. Jack [the bassist] is my brother, so I can’t get out of that one. Ian [the drummer] and I’s lives just aligned together at a really good time, it was just perfect.

I started yo-yoing in 2019 – it’s an absolutely incredible community. Remy is the best yo-yoer in the world, that’s how we met. I found him on Instagram and said, “I want to be friends with you!!” And that’s how we met. He’s my favorite yoyo player ever.

Remy was later called onstage by Faye to perform a yo-yo set near the end of her show. It was met with absolute rave reviews from the crowd. More information on Faye’s music can be found 

Q&A: A pre-show chat with Faye Webster

In one far-flung corner of YouTube’s dark and winding databases, there lies a video of a teenage boy playing an original song titled “BE KIND” on guitar. His pitched, sorrowful voice echoes through the dusty staircase he hunches upon, his eyes covered by his long, mopped hair, arms adorned with a large black sweatshirt to match. The song is a haunting combination of painful lyrics and extended guitar interludes. The comment section of the video is split into two camps – those begging for the boy to release sheet music or a guide on how to play the song, and those marveling at how talented this musician is for scores of grown adults to be clamoring for instructions to a song that he wrote as a teenager. The description of the video offers little reprieve to those inquirers, only saying “Alex Giannascoli guitar style.”

Today, the boy in the video is better known by his abbreviated stage name, Alex G. While “BE KIND” was never officially released, Giannascoli soon found himself incredibly busy in the music world soon after the video’s release, gaining online notoriety for the self-published music he would post on Bandcamp and other music forums. Set apart from the competition by his very, very lo-fi approach to recording within the indie rock/pop/folk sound, Giannascoli was creating sounds that felt like sinking into a murky leaf-filled pool. His sound and musical vision have always been prone to change, apparent in his sonic experimentation on 2019’s 

 – but Alex G has always felt like a very consistent artist, delivering eight albums chock full of beautiful music. Despite the fact that his September 2022 release 

 is a rollercoaster ride of abrupt shifts in lyrical content and bizarre genre combinations, it’s undoubtedly an Alex G classic: an amalgamation of all of the things that make music so cool.

 a spin for the first time, there are many things that immediately strike the listener, but the heavy religious themes are the most attention-grabbing. Despite stating on the record that he isn’t a religious person, Alex G filled 

 with enough love for God to make a pastor blush. While some of it is more overt, such as the album title or lines like “God is my designer / Jesus is my lawyer,” much of it is subtle, with Genius.com commenters revealing seemingly casual lines to be almost direct adaptations of Bible verses left and right. Assuming that these songs aren’t actually about how much Alex G loves God, since he doesn’t believe in one, it’s easy to theorize that the God Giannascoli sings about is a person close to him, from whom he finds great guidance and inspiration. It might even just be the concept of such a person. Either explanation fits into a compelling narrative of character development through his music. Earlier albums such as 

 are filled with lyrics detailing deep melancholy and unrest (notably “Animals”), but the gorgeous lyrics on 

 contain feelings of love, gratefulness, and guidance.

As opposed to more sparsely orchestrated albums such as 

, Alex G makes full use of the opportunities that a studio budget and brief TikTok fame bring, incorporating banjos, string arrangements, choirs, pianos, and most importantly, lots of guitars. While a lesser conductor might allow such an assortment to fall into cacophony, Giannascoli manages to create a sound that evades any one genre label. Twangy bluegrass guitars, beautiful piano lines, trap drums, indie vocals – the album is innovative while still maintaining the classic Alex G sound on songs like “Runner,” “Ain’t It Easy,” and “Miracles.” Other songs, such as “No Bitterness” and the unbelievable beauty that is “Cross the Sea,” see Giannascoli exploring entirely new genres and production styles, not just to him, but to the world. While the first half of “No Bitterness” sounds like a natural progression from the sound he was experimenting with in 

, the second half rapidly transitions into a hyperpop sequence, complete with swirling modulated vocals, distorted drums, and a sick bass drop. On the other hand, “Cross the Sea” genuinely sounds like a Drain Gang song, filled with autotuned 

s and a dreamy background sequence straight out of a video game epilogue. Freaky, weird, and awesome.

Alex G changed his name to (Sandy) Alex G in 2017 for fears that another popular musician named Alex G would take legal action against him. Yet just a few years later, he had rocketed to such fame that it was no longer necessary. While this was certainly good news for his label’s legal team, the question remains to be answered as to how Giannascoli himself feels about fame, especially when some of it was accrued through popularity on the children’s dancing app TikTok. As an artist who flourished under the soft LED glows of the Philly underground music scene, Giannascoli seems to be frustrated with of his fandom, drunkenly refusing to play his popular songs at shows and remarking on “Miracles,” “How many more songs am I supposed to write / Before I can turn it off and say goodnight?” Despite having been releasing music for almost ten years straight now, Alex G has yet to waver in the quality of his music or innovation – the only roadblock on the horizon seems to be how much longer he’s willing to go for.

"God Save the Animals" has a toucan on the cover – and it only gets better

In 2019, Grian Chatten shouted “My childhood was small / But I’m gonna be big,” on the first song of Fontaines D.C’s debut album, 

. A tongue-in-cheek reference to both the disingenuity of many modern punk artists in their attempts to capitalize off of counterculture, and a note of defiance towards England’s attempts to minimize Ireland’s history and culture, the catchy chorus made it perfectly clear who and what Fontaines D.C is all about. 

captured the ears and hearts of the world stage, and launched Fontaines into post-punk/garage rock stardom. It was voted album of the year by BBC Radio 6, landing the band a spot on 

and setting them off on a fifty-state tour.

Despite the great success and acclaim that 

 brought the band, they were gripped with the same crises that every other modern post-punk band seems to be experiencing – a biting need to grow and evolve past their basic genre labels, even if it means completely changing their sound. Indeed, in an 

 with NME, Chatten admitted that one goal of the band was to “unlearn the sounds of ‘Dogrel’ … probably throw away the guitars eventually.” So, just three years after their debut, Fontaines D.C released 

, an album with an almost completely shifted approach to rock ‘n’ roll. As opposed to their first two projects’ erratic drums, contorted guitar riffs, and hollered vocals, 

’s instrumentation is carefully arranged into dark and hypnotic loops, while Chatten sings with a bit more of a deliberate drawl. At some moments, the album feels more like a gloomy take on Coldplay’s 

 than anything post-punk. The lyrics, while occasionally dry, deal with heavy political issues, especially those centering around the struggles of attempting to maintain an Irish identity while living in England.

The first track, titled “In ár gCroíthe go deo,” begins with a simple repetitive bassline – a veritable post-punk essential. However, the notes are subdued and quiet, as opposed to the loud show-stealer basslines popularized by other U.K. post-punk bands such as Yard Act or Dry Cleaning. Within seconds, Chatten begins singing the title of the song in a sustained harmony with himself, as a guitar and more vocal layers slowly begin to come in. After two minutes of haunting vocal loops, the drums finally come in, driving the listener forward with a dark, yet still subdued force. The song references a 

 by the Church of England in mid-2020, in which a woman wished to have the phrase “In ár gCroíthe go deo” written on her gravestone, but was denied by a court judge. “In ár gCroíthe go deo” means “in our hearts forever” in the Irish language, and the Church was afraid that there was a “risk that the phrase would be regarded as some form of slogan or that its inclusion without translation would of itself be seen as a political statement.” Many Irish people were horribly offended by such a ruling, seeing it for what it is – blatant xenophobia. To ban a phrase from being used without an accompanying translation on the basis that just the use of a language is enough to be a controversial political message is a serious affront to a people, one which horrified Chatten, and the turmoil he feels is clearly expressed.

Further songs, such as “Jackie Down the Line,” “Roman Holiday,” and “I Love You” deal with other Irish-English experiences, such as a feeling of loss of Irishness when placed in a different environment, the bonds that Chatten formed with his fellow kinfolk while attempting to acclimate to living in England, and frustration with the corruption and grief that he feels has taken over modern-day Ireland. While the songs’ lyrical content is very powerful, bringing harsh light to a generally unexplored topic in modern popular media, the instrumental music itself is unfortunately frequently dreary. While the steady drums and swirling vocal harmonies almost immediately bring the listener into a trance, very few songs ever build up to a climax strong enough to rip one out of that daze. The result is an album that can be very easily listened to all the way through without really having to pay any attention – optimal for ambience, not so much for rock. While the experimentation towards the new sound that could almost be called shoegaze-y is exciting, I’m not sure if it’s paying off just yet. While songs like Bloomsday have exciting payoffs near the end, as every element that had been developed over the course of the song comes together for one exciting sendoff, others such as “Big Shot” or “How Cold Love Is” are unfortunately repetitive, dark, and boring.

With Fontaines’ talk of experimenting and developing their sound, 

feels like a pit stop – an update to let the world know how they’re doing and what direction they’re moving in, but hopefully not their destination.

"Skinty Fia" is a step forward for Fontaines D.C., but hopefully not their destination

With five hours to go before doors opened for their Boston show, Car Seat Headrest announced that their opening band had tested COVID-positive. Do not fret, they announced: they would simply open for themselves. And, by god, they did.

I arrived at the House of Blues an hour before doors in anticipation that it would get pretty crowded, given the cult nature of Car Seat’s fanbase. Indeed, as I arrived, there were already 300 or so eager concertgoers who were waiting in a line wrapping all the way down the street and around the corner, and getting dampened by the rain that had just started coming down. As my friends and I peered at the crowd while walking by, I noticed an abundance of self made merch and silly costumes, with T-shirts that said “MARRY ME WILL TOLEDO” (Car Seat Headrest’s frontman) and “I LOVE YOU ANDREW KATZ” (the drummer). Multiple shirts said something along the lines of “I HATE CAR SEAT HEADREST,” an in-joke among the fans. I wonder what Toledo thinks.

Lead singer and songwriter Will Toledo is at an interesting point in his career. At 29 years old, Toledo has been writing and recording albums under the Car Seat Headrest name for over a decade now, releasing a dozen solo lo-fi indie rock albums on Bandcamp before signing with Matador Records in 2015. Made distinct by its confessional lyrics, queer themes, and explosive buildups, Toledo’s music has had a resounding impact online, sparking countless covers, fanarts, and memes. TikTok’s fad-of-the-week nature has recently laid its eyes on Car Seat Headrest’s 2013 song “It’s Only Sex,” leading some fans (my friend Anneliese in particular) to express fears that the fanbase would be overrun by trend-chasing twelve year olds — likening it to Twenty-One Pilots’ “skeleton clique.” In addition, the album that the tour was dedicated to, 

 (MADLO), had received mixed fan reviews when it was released in 2020, due to its vast contrast with Toledo’s previous work. Many fans were hoping for a sequel to 2011’s 

, which is often seen as the band’s magnum opus. While 

 is beloved for its lush, crunchy guitars and lengthy songs (“Beach Life-In-Death” and “Famous Prophets (Stars)” in particular), 

 is short, sparse, heavy with electronic production, and inspired by Toledo consistently listening to Billboard’s Top 100 songs while writing the album.

Katz took the stage to open first, accompanied by an easel, canvas, and a handful of colorful sharpies. Slowly but surely dragging his markers across the board to make (what I would really hate to call) drawings, Katz narrated his progress using a very Dennis Reynolds persona. He would occasionally ask the audience questions like, “DO YOU GUYS THINK YOU UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF THIS ART?”, to which the audience would hoot and holler and laugh and say, “YES!!!!”, and he would reply, “NONE OF YOU CAN EVER HOPE TO UNDERSTAND MY ART! I AM A GENIUS!” and continue to draw penises in front of a crowd of two thousand people. After he ran out of canvases, Katz played a short set from his EDM side project 1TraitDanger, with lyrics including “Back up / back up / back up / I’m a man now! / Back up / back up / back up / bar mitzvah!” The crowd loved it.

Next up was Ethan Ives, the band’s guitarist. He played a few of his beautiful solo songs, complete with instrumental breaks that showed exactly how he had landed the gig of Car Seat Headrest’s guitarist. At the end of his set, to the shock of the crowd, Toledo came onstage with his guitar over a half an hour before he was officially slated to, announcing he would be playing a few requested songs from his projects before Car Seat. Sitting on a chair with his guitar while Katz kept drawing in the background, Toledo sang his songs “The Bell Jar,” “Pomegranate Trees in July,” and, much to the shock and delight of the crowd, 

Twenty or so minutes after Car Seat Headrest finished their opening set, none other than Car Seat Headrest entered the stage. Initially head to toe in bright orange reflective gear and a gas mask with LED eyes, Toledo was an absolute sight to behold the entire duration of the concert, eventually declothing to reveal jorts over leggings with a cute rabbit T-shirt. With an incredibly tight band and some of the coolest concert lights I’ve seen in my life, Car Seat Headrest played a perfect mix of their new and old material, playing essential songs such as “Drunk Drivers / Killer Whales,” “Bodys,” and “Fill in the Blank,” along with absolutely gorgeous live versions of about half of 

, some of which were even mashed up with classics such as “Can’t Cool Me Down / Vincent Outro.” The highlight of the show was undoubtedly their performance of all 13 minutes and 18 seconds of “Beach Life-In-Death”, with a cute little synth intro that sounded quite like a baseball organ before launching into one of this generation’s most ethereal, complex, and heartbreaking love stories ever told through music.

Toledo had previously mentioned in an interview that he had written 

 with live performance in mind. While that isn’t apparent in the studio recordings, when it’s being played onstage, every song just feels so right. Car Seat Headrest is a must-see the next time they come into town; they’re a perfect mix of electronic pop, live art classes, EDM, and the best indie rock you’ll ever hear.

Car Seat Headrest makes art at House of Blues

“The poor bastards of what will forever be known as Generation Z are doomed to be the first generation of Americans who will grow up with a lower standard of living than their parents enjoyed.”

 – Hunter S. ThompsonWhen spending your formative years witnessing what seems to be the active collapse of human civilization, it takes a load off the psyche to look for the positive bits. Yard Act, a new Leeds-based post-punk band invigorated by the complete disarray of the rotting husk of the British Empire, is one such silver lining. The bastard child of late-stage capitalism’s socio-political turmoil mixed with a pandemic, Yard Act’s debut album 

 is a resounding display of helplessness, frustration, irreverence, and most importantly, dry humor.When post-punk is mentioned, it’s easy for the mind to immediately jump to the new British post-punk phenomenon that’s been loosely labeled as anything from the 

 to the “Windmill Scene,” a term referencing a venue in Brixton at which many of the bands associated with the movement are known to perform, or just hang out. These notably young acts — Black Country, New Road (BCNR), black midi, and Squid, to name a few — all emerged or rose to notoriety in or around 2019, ascending through the ranks of London’s underground scenes for their entrancing rejections of genre and authority. Yet, despite being identical in their genre and British origin, Yard Act is set apart from their contemporaries for two main reasons — their straightforward and guitar-based sound is much more Gang of Four than King Crimson, but more importantly, their lyrical content is purely and unabashedly political. 

, Yard Act’s debut album, skewers every modern entity under the sun (not that the sun has ever managed to shine on Britain). Through the full run of the album, vocalist and lyricist James Smith’s vicious drawl tears into everything from gentrifiers with “

” to middle-aged soccer players to himself.The opener and title track “The Overload” is fast-paced and upbeat, with its narration split between the perspectives of various people sitting in a pub, including a baby boomer complaining about this generation’s weakness, a hopeless youngster unable to comprehend a meaning in life, and a concert promoter telling Smith to cut the politics or he’ll end up “…in the back of an ambulance / With the mic stand rammed up his arse twice over.” Following it is the slightly weaker song “Dead Horse.” While Smith’s voice bristles with the ferocity of his anger at the wretched state England is struggling to stay afloat in, the instrumental lacks the appropriate punch to support these vocals. Subsequent songs include “Payday,” a rant about class fetishism intact with an incredibly catchy chorus and a wonderfully goofy bridge, and “Land of the Blind,” which calls out the depravity of those who are complacent in times of political crisis — and ends with Smith performing a magic trick. Bookending the album are its two beaming highlights, “Tall Poppies” and “100% Endurance.”“Tall Poppies” clocks in at six minutes and 21 seconds. It’s the longest track on the album by far, about the entire tragic life, “

,”. of an unnamed man. Although he lived a very charmed upbringing — handsome, athletic, and beloved by his village — our protagonist chose not to venture away from home on his own path into the exciting outside world, but rather, to stick with what’s comfortable and familiar. He gets a job in real estate, marries his high school sweetheart, and starts a family. Eventually, the cracks that form in every perfect little suburban life start to appear. He has to send his mother to a nursing home, he gets phased out at his job, and his marriage starts to fall apart — “In the hopes of stoking the coals of two long lost souls / Which comes first, counseling or keys in the bowl?” Eventually, he dies of old age — happy? Maybe. His funeral is packed with everyone from the village, and no one says a single bad word about him. The narrator seems to suggest that he was a close friend of our deceased hero, and begins to ponder upon whether this protagonist would have lived a better life should he have ever left the village, or whether a life lived in this unique form of ignorance really could have been bliss.“100% Endurance,” the last song on the album, is a bittersweet tale of humanity finding out that– yes!!! We’ve managed to communicate with some extraterrestrial life out there!! But– they have no idea what the purpose of life is, either. With a more mellow sound, similar to Slaughter Beach, Dog’s song “At the Moonbase”, the premise is so silly that it’s almost adorable, conjuring images of a Mike Wazowski-esque alien species having its own existential crisis to mirror ours’. It’s unclear if that’s the only message of the song, as the beautifully poignant chorus seems to describe the process of getting over someone. Knowing Yard Act’s penchant for humor, it may as well be. The song provides a beautiful wrap-up to both the stellar album and the introduction of the band to the music scene. It even containing a throwback to their hit single “Fixer Upper” that started it all, with an in-joke reference to its narrator Graeme. While Smith has 

 Yard Act’s post-punk label, proclaiming that “[They’ll] outgrow it like every other band worth their salt will,” the genre is certainly one built for channeling righteous anger through jagged but groovy music, something that Yard Act has proven they are very, very good at.

Yard Act shakes the blues loose on "The Overload"

Parquet Courts had a lot to live up to following their 2018 release 

, which deftly wove together coarse vocals, funky basslines, fast guitars, and incredibly socially conscious lyrics to achieve a true indie rock/art punk triumph. With 

, they fell so unbelievably short of their previous releases that I’m partially inclined to believe the album was recorded and released purely through a contractual obligation.

has an okay start. “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” the first single and also the album’s opener, begins with four bars of a punchy live drum loop that’s soon followed by an explosive guitar riff chorus that wouldn’t be out of place in The Strokes’ 

. Although It’s repetitive and too long, the song delivers what its title promises: Its lyrical musings on plans for a post-covid world combined with its thumping instrumental create a single that’ll have any casual listener power-walking down Huntington Ave.

The rest of the songs, however, are where 

 goes downhill. With little hyperbole, every song on the album can be sorted into one of three categories: tedious indie rock, dance beats that you can’t really dance to, and two songs that are actually good, but are very disjointed from one another.


“Black Widow Spider,” “Homo Sapien,” “Zoom Out,” “Just Shadows,” “Walking at a Downtown Pace”

Each song feels like a halfhearted attempt to reclaim the head-banging magic of 

. “Just Shadows” is the most egregious offender, sounding like a high school cover band’s take on the former album’s “Freebird II” (same chord progression for the intro, just played in a less compelling way!) Yet, not even those that try something new hit the spot. The vocals are missing their familiar ferocity, the bass lines are weak, and the guitar parts – my gosh! The guitar parts. More than one of these songs are made up of just one chord played over and over. I’m not even exaggerating! The entire verse in “Black Widow Spider” is just an E major chord, and that of “Homo Sapien” is just a C# major chord. Both just played over, and over, and over.

It begs the question – were they even trying? I mean this seriously. I’m all for musical innovation, and I’m always down for some ambient drone chord experimentation, but if it’s a rock song, please, for crying out loud, throw in at least two chords for the verse. All Wreckless Eric needed was an E and an A for the entirety of “Whole Wide World” and he had the hit of a lifetime. Pitchfork 

 that much of this album was stitched together through hours of jam sessions at Brooklyn DIY shows, so that could explain a little bit of how musically cautious these tracks are, but wow.Uninteresting, repetitive, and even frustrating to listen to at times, these five tracks are very much not worth a listen. On to the next four!


DANCE BEATS THAT YOU CAN’T REALLY DANCE TO

“Marathon of Anger,” “Application/Apparatus,” “Sympathy for Life,” “Trullo”

Defying all odds, an album that’s host to so many boring and uninspired tracks also boasts an impressive resume of… really weird and terrible dance songs! Mix grooveless drum beats with headache-inducing synths and flimsy guitar riffs and you reap exactly what you sow: moldy jams. The instrumental intro to “Marathon of Anger” somehow manages to conjure a deeply claustrophobic feeling of being stuck in a never-ending fluorescent-lit maze of office spaces, “Application/Apparatus” is a masterclass in how not to write the climax of a song, “Zoom Out” sounds like a gaggle of dads shouting along to the Grateful Dead, and “Trullo” is catastrophically bad to the point of being genuinely rage-inducing.

 with Rolling Stone, lead singer Andrew Savage detailed how after trying acid, doing pushups, and LOVING IT, he decided to go on a vision quest to a small village in Italy, take large doses of acid, work out a lot, and be an artist.Perhaps the artistic enlightenment that I’ve heard comes with a mind freed by heavy usage of psychedelics will shine through on the next Parquet Courts album. Until then, these terribly devoid Joy Division d-sides / pale 

Despite their abysmal surroundings, two tracks manage to shine as beacons of light amongst the sludge – “Plant Life” and “Pulcinella” are everything that the album set out to be. “Plant Life” could be an indie-dance-pop hit any day of the week, with cute 

 synths, groovy basslines, and overlapping narration forming the only actually danceable “dance” track on the album. “Pulcinella,” clocking in at just under seven minutes, is a lush ballad that perfectly captures Savage’s unique voice and wandering vocals, with its moving instrumental using repetition correctly for the first time on the entire album, but not before its lyrics end with the beautiful line, “Who am I when I can’t be unwound? / ‘Darling, it’s me,’ as the mask comes off / ‘It always was.’”

was a disappointing flop, those two ditties left me with a glimmer of hope for any of Parquet Courts’ future releases. Here’s to the power of acid!


Parquet Courts dozes off on "Sympathy for Life"

September 26, 2021 at Brighton Music Hall

Packed with shimmering vape clouds, thick leather jackets, and an eclectic mishmash of piercings in every location known to man, the line to get into the Indigo De Souza concert at Brighton Music Hall was made up of the most concentrated collection of Doc Martens Boston has ever seen – that is, until the Phoebe Bridgers show the next night.


The jittery lines of pre-show conversation that managed to penetrate the feverish din were often comical, shouts of “I’ve waited my entire life for this moment, I’m going to actually pass away the second she steps out onstage,” contrasting wonderfully with the usual response, “That’s cool! I’ve only heard one song by her, but I’m excited.” That “one song” being, of course, “Take Off Ur Pants,” De Souza’s energizing hit that always seems to come on Spotify autoplay at the perfect time.


Local darling three-piece Horse Jumper of Love opened for De Souza, wowing the crowd with their shoegaze/slowcore hits – notably “Orange Peeler” and “Ugly Brunette,” marked by heavy use of guitar pedal effects, sending beautifully cascading walls of sound to wash over the audience. Many of their pieces played were off of their 2016 album

, a release that is very much what its title describes, characterized by its grainy white noise-backed vocals, sparse guitar parts, and overall gloominess. Notably, however, Horse Jumper managed to turn their literal demo anthology into a very exciting, high-octane live set, trading out their soft fingerpicking and gentle murmurs for face-twisting screams and screeching guitar riffs while still maintaining the beauty of each transformed song.


Then, Indigo De Souza. Later, midway through her set, she casually remarked, “Right before I come onstage I always feel like I’m about to die, like, my whole body starts to break down, but then once I’m here it’s fine.” This was not at all evident as she stepped onstage for the first time – her wide grin and gleaming eyes darting across the venue as she adjusted her guitar strap could’ve convinced any member of the audience that she’d never been quite so at home in her entire life. Ironic, then, that her opener song, a (seemingly unreleased) haunting slow-burn, reached its climax with a breathtaking cry of, “I don’t feel at home… in this house… in this world.”


De Souza’s band, consisting of an overalls-and-moustache-clad bassist (Mario?), an incredibly tall guitarist who received feral screams of adoration from the middle-right side of the audience every time he bent a high note, and a drummer with the most ferocious blonde mullet this side of New England, delivered an electrifying performance. The highlight songs were “Die/Cry” with its entrancing hookline (“I’d rather die / Than see you cry!”) and “How I Get Myself Killed,” a self-destruction anthem that left the audience too emotionally distressed to be able to deliver even a fraction of the applause it deserved.


By the end of the set, the audience was in complete shambles, and she hadn’t even played the masterpiece of musical catharsis titled “Take Off Ur Pants” yet. Grinning into the mic, De Souza whispered, “We have one more song for you, thank you so much.” The audience trembled in anticipation, ready to scream, and she gleefully launched into… “Kill Me”? What? It made sense for her finale to be the closer of her new album (

), especially given the recent nature of its release, and it’s a fantastic song, grabbing the audience by the throat as was per. Yet, I was still a little mystified. Indigo De Souza’s most popular song, left off the setlist. That’s hilarious! Why would she do that? Did she just not feel like playing it? Does it not sound good live? Was it something deeper, like a resentment of its popularity, feeling that it isn’t a true representation of her art?


As the song came to a close, the band smiled, thanked the audience one more time, and stepped offstage to the deafness-inducing roars of applause, joy, desire, and a significant amount of crying. Screams for an encore reached a feverish pitch after about a minute and a half of applause, but De Souza and band showed no indication of peeking their heads through that curtain once more. Slightly disappointed, but overall absolutely thrilled with the night’s performance, I turned towards the merch table, hoping to scoop up any CDs that I could get my hands on. But, halfway through taking my first step, a single shriek of “YES!” cut through the din. And another. Soon, the crowd was losing its mind as the band sprinted back onstage and immediately launched into the song of the hour, “Take Off Ur Pants,” and it did not disappoint. Every word that left De Souza’s mouth was gleefully echoed back by the entire contents of Brighton Music Hall, with some hardcore fans even singing along to the song’s iconic bassline, a perfect end to a stellar show.


Reflecting on the show on the T ride home, I found myself still wondering why De Souza didn’t have “Take Off Ur Pants” on the setlist, choosing to rather risk it all and hope that the crowd demands an encore. Then, a thought popped up out of the corner of my memory – when the band first “ended” their set, they left their instruments onstage, plugged in, amps on, PA levels intact. They knew they would be coming back on. They knew we would need an encore. They knew they would be playing “Take Off Ur Pants.”

Indigo De Souza went into her show believing that it would be so incredible that the audience would be on its hands and knees begging for more by the end of it. The best part is? She was right.


Archie O'Connell