[live video + revu] The recent past of Future Carnivores @ Cambridge Elks Lodge
As the old saying goes, “the more complicated any plan gets, the more things can go wrong.” But if nothing goes wrong with a complicated plan, then its results could equal the unbridled grooviness of FUTURE CARNIVORES Saturday night at a dance party/rock show composite dubbed Tiger Mountain. DJs spun retro-jams in the front room, bands rocked out in back, and I wish they had all shared the front room. Space and practicality would’ve been major issues, but there were multi-colored disco lights in the front room. Multi-colored disco lights are pretty.
A glance at FC's onstage line-up – Bo Barringer of MEANDJOANCOLLINS-legacy and present-day GUILLERMO SEXO players Reuben Bettsak and Noell Dorsey reinforced by stereo drum kits and bass – might’ve left unfamiliar listeners expecting quite a bit of bombast. As in, more bombast than you’ll hear on FC’s shimmering self-titled new record. I hate, hate writing words like “unclassifiable,” but maybe I can't weasel around it this time. Should I call FC glam-gaze? Uneasy listening? Indie rock reimagined by Lorne the demon lounge singer from Angel?
Regardless, it’s cool stuff. I’m not sure if it was around the time they executed a fresh number sporting wackachicka-wackachicka-wackachicka guitar slicing, or when both drummers simultaneously crushed a big gnarly fusion-ish breakdown, but the stage-enveloping combo cracked into a rarely-inhabited threshold between elegance and noise. Maybe that could be their genre - “Eleganoise.”
VELAH embarked their inaugural gig pre-FC, and also have an impressive resume of ex-and/or-current affiliations -- STATIC OF THE GODS and THE ACRE, respectively. Let’s say they delivered indie-to-break-furniture-to with a splash of second-wave emo culminating in a astral-scraping chord-smashing freak out of gargantuan intensity. It would’ve saved them some effort if they had just told everybody “Hi. We will be a big deal in six months,” but that wouldn’t have been as much fun for us.
Before them, Somerville duo TRAVELS wowed with experimental minimalism that totally reminded me of late summer in Jamaica Plain for reasons I’m not sure I can meaningfully articulate.