Screeching like a banshee with her black hair flaying and three keyboards and a a sound loop around her, one guy on keyboards and guitar, another chick on keyboards, a drummer and Terra Lopez herself fiddling with nobs before moving her hands mid-air like a refuge from a Lew Grossman nove., welcome to Sacramento's Sister Crayon where the sun never sets though it damn well should.
The band plays in the dimness of twilight and they throw in so many noise modulations it gets hard to gage out where the sounds are coming. The songs are weak on melody but strong on texture:
If you have heard Sister Crayons MTV plugged song "(In) Reverse"(off their 2011 aptly named Bellow) you think you may have a feel for the obstreperous Gothic wonder that is Sister Crayon, but it is weirder than that. It's like a haunted house ride, things keep jumping out of you, starling you, and there is nothing to hold on to, not a melody line, not a structure that doesn't seem capable of falling apart on you.
Tara and her foil in time Dani Fernandez, who was hawking her tees after the set, started as a two piece but the expanded band today have the irresistible centrifugal force of a wail in the dark, a ghost in the school yard. The band spooks me and not always in a good way, it clanks to much and puts my nerves on edge. Nevermoreso than on the bafflingly brilliant "Thief, Boxer Asleep" that starts like a siren calling from the depths of the ocean and ends like Radiohead on one of their less congenial days.
An acquired taste for sure but still, well worth acquiring, Sister Crayon take the dynamics of rock and twist them into waking nightmare.
Grade: B+