Wednesday 06.17.09: VIVA VOCE / CUT OFF YOUR HANDS @ echo

Posted by Brianna - filed in All Ages, events

Kevin and Anita Robinson live the kind of life they make TV shows out of, a married couple making music in their home together and touring the country to promote it. Maybe some day they’ll have kids and groom them into band members, but for now just the two of them make plenty of noise, and Get Yr Blood Sucked Out is confident, psychedelic, hard-hitting, and the best noise they’ve made yet.

The duo’s sound has sharpened, with more spacious production, simpler arrangements, and more refined songcraft: Where their three previous records all took a little time to marinate, this one is strikingly immediate. It opens with a beat and feel reminiscent of Blur’s “Tender”, but the harmony is much more tense, and rather than a gospel choir, “Believer” has two voices harmonizing, calm to the point of sinister, and Anita’s screaming lead guitar. Her guitar is one of the album’s biggest trump cards– in an era when flashy leads are hard to come by it’s something of a relief to hear economical fretboard fireworks like the squawking, melodic solo on “From the Devil Himself”.

Not that her husband gives her much slack to pick up. His drum parts are engaging and frequently memorable as hooks in their own right. If nothing else, it seems clear that touring has honed their skill as musicians to a fine point, and this may be why they’ve had the confidence to keep the arrangements more basic this time out. Whatever the reason, it works beautifully. “Faster Than a Dead Horse” is a masterful pop song, with Kevin providing killer “bah bah” backing vocals for Anita’s double-tracked lead. She can’t wait to sling her guitar, cutting loose after just one verse and sending up a distorted torrent after the second.- Pitchfork

With:
Cut Off Your Hands || Listen

Set Times:
Viva Voce – 9pm
Cut Off Your Hands – 8pm

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