The electro-pop quartet Priori from Portlandstarted the night at the Mint on Friday with their light melodies,driven by voice harmonies, sprinkled with tinkling noises and performedwith a playful energy.
There were a lot of pretty sounds in their emotionally-driven poppytunes, from hard-hitting drums to delicate xylophone. It was sweet andmoody at the same time, very moody even, with quiet moments followed byagitated parts full of vocal harmonies voices that were a reminiscentof Death Cab For Cutie bright moments, a mix of joyous exuberance,nostalgia and latent sadness.
The stage of the Mint may have been relatively small, but their set wasnot short of dynamism and explosive 3 or 4-part-vocal harmonies,producing a buoyant spectacle with very catchy tunes, and other tooelectrified and unpredictable to be as immediately likable, butappealing for another visit.
They had set up their ambiance with these radio voices between songs,playing with a half laid-back-relaxed attitude (lead guitarist GregHarpel was playing barefoot), and a half cool-elegant note(vocalist-bassist Brandon Johnson was wearing a white vest), but neverforgetting about showing as much vigor as possible on stage, withviolent squalls from Joe Mingus’ drums and Kyle Dieker and GregHarpel's guitars alternating with synths. This controlled chaos withsoaring vocals that seem to characterize many of their songs, wasfollowing an unruly road, sometimes slowing down with crystallineguitars, then re-boosting with a galloping melody with more guitars,drums and keys.
At ease on stage, the quartet thanked several times the early crowd atthe Mint, browsing the songs from their recently released self-titledalbum.
Their poppy-folk sound was ‘little’ music that possibly could become really big, just take the heart-warming ‘Lady of Late’ with the lyrics‘I was born with a heart of stone/ until you came along/ and you brokemy throne’… or the fresh and original ‘Kings of Troy’, or even the poptune-turned-anthem ‘Alone’, it was reminding me a lot of electro-pop,may be even a little bit Bright Eyes, Modest Mouse, Postal Service,very catchy like some hits in the making.
Setlist
Worthy Dreams
Lady of Late
Kings of Troy
Alone
Coal Mine
Searching
Devil Heater
Wait
White Coats