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Review: This Will Destroy You, Balmorhea, Chief Rival at Mohawk
On stage, This Will Destroy You live up to the principles set forth in their name. During Friday’s show at Mohawk, the San Marcos quartet drove through a set of familiar tracks with seismic force, treating the subtlety and slow buildup of their recorded material to high levels of sonic exuberance, and to a sheer volume usually reserved for more explicitly heavy bands.
It was a night made for lovers of (mostly) instrumental music. Under-18 group Chief Rival opened with a set of psychedelic shoegaze that started with hints of Jesu filtered through a Jim Morrison sensibility, and moved through tunes bearing the cinematic imprint of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. The band may have to sport X’s on their wrists because of their age but already display an impressive level of control and confidence.
Balmorhea’s soft tapestry of tone poems and experimental acoustic compositions bridged the two louder bands. The songs were marked in turn by driving steel-string arrangements, blissed-out melodies hummed — or bellowed — rather than sang, and a swirling, droning interplay of cello, keys, banjo and violin. The venue wasn’t always ideal for a group like Balmorhea; ambient chatter from the packed-to-the-gills room challenged the listener at times. Balmorhea’s March 13 record-release show at Ballet Austin’s Butler Dance Education Center should be marked on your calendars.
This night, though, was a showcase for the headliner. Starting with “A Three Legged Workhorse,” TWDY’s mission was clear from the outset: to deconstruct the band’s post-rock steady-build approach, synthesizing the intricate interplay of their dual guitars into a primal, rib-shattering pulse.
The songs were propelled by rhythm more than melody, with the slower sections on songs like “Quiet” presenting themselves as reflective intermissions between the periods of foot-stomping, controlled chaos.
There were times when the volume came dangerously close to swallowing the songs - if you were familiar with the set list, you sometimes knew what you were hearing more than anything by implication - but the crowd didn’t seem to mind.
In songs like “The World Is Our,” the effect came together euphorically, screaming guitar lines laid over drums crashing to the edge of their limits, locking band and audience together in appreciation of pure sound.
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