Music, Style & Culture
| Print : Web : Radio : Mobile

Acrylics, Bowery Ballroom, NY

Live Reviews

Acrylics are sure to have the chance to perfect their unfolding strain of song craft.

9th November 2009, Bowery Ballroom / By Willis Arnold
Acrylics Acrylics have claimed Tom Petty, The Cars, and Wings as influences, and though their recorded material seems to reflect these interests, live, they sound closer to bands like the Low Anthem.

The band has boasted a line-up of five members, but only three are in attendance tonight. Resting mainly on the sound of pedal steal, acoustic guitar, and electric base, Acrylics manage the intimacy between a solitary churchgoer and one lit altar candle.

None of the band’s songs scream of incredible musicianship, but do, with their purported forebears, share a knack for palatable melodies. The first half of the 'Molly’s Vertigo' chorus (“I’m walking a strange line…”) will repeat itself in your brain for nights to come.

As a threesome, the group lose some of the synthesized sound of their recorded material, finding themselves in a folkier milieu. This allows many of their songs the opportunity to embrace a melodic delicacy unnecessarily embellished in the recordings of their more synth-reliant tunes.

During an unnamed song (lyrics: “I’ll remember who she was for who she might have been”) the band expertly tease two faux crescendos, leaving the song pleasantly unresolved. In another of Acrylics’ more roadhouse stylized songs, one of the guitar chords malfunctions, adding a crackle that lends an unforeseen aura of authenticity. Whether it is intentional or not, the band capitalize on the accident in their next piece, introducing a distorted wah pedal that necessarily expanded their musical dynamic.

With an album recently released on Terrible Records and a healthy relationship with some of indie rock’s current heroes (Chris Taylor runs Terrible), Acrylics are sure to have the chance to perfect their unfolding strain of song craft. Rating: 7/10
Click like to get the latest music news, hottest tracks and more via Facebook.

Comments