"It got weird., didn't it?" cracks guitarist Brian Albanon after bassist Michelle Montavon's bass goes does down for the count.
Very weird.
The Suicide Dolls don't do silence. In theory, they would hit the Pianos stage at 10pm and play atonal punk modulations nonstop with white hot noise segueing them from one end of the set to another: it is like the roar of an airplane and it is loud and relentless, almost ridiculously so for a three piece band. Mind bending, loud, more -post punk than punk, but still punk rock.
And it was knocking me for a loop when the it suddenly stops and i am kind of happy it did because it put the show so far into sharp relief. The Suicide Dolls mesmerize you with sound, the songs smash into each other and the mood is intense sensory overload and having it end suddenly, snapped me back into reality.Mind bending stuff. Suddenly, the Suicidie Dolls are joking around… just like you and me, and this aural soul merchants are sweet people. And then, just as suddenly they are running into brick walls again.
According to Brian, their newly recorded album "…is a collection of rock, punk, pop, and noise. In the middle of the song "Smash" we tear the song down and build it back like a Sonic Youth song. " On stage he does that mid song, dissipating the slightest of melody, heavily bashed by the bass and drummer Matt Covey anyway, and his guitar becomes steely feedback before switching directions again, and again, till you're feeling dizzy. It is a trick the noise purveyors pull off a couple of times and that disruption of sound is why they don't bother with formal song closings.
It isn't about performance as performance art, watch Michelle punch her bass in the back of its neck and the distorted rattle that comes out of it, it is truly an art installation.
The Connecticut are tight the way a jazz trio can be tight, the way Ornette Coleman can use harmolodics to be tight. They are in process of collapsing and rebuilding as a constant flux and is both exciting and, oddly, a little enervating to watch: the power of the sound seems to be coming from somewhere else, and, like ambient music, you can both drift and be stilled.
At the end Michelle says that's all and the band winds itself down.
Grade: A-