White Rabbits were headlining the Hudson Block Party on Sunday night, and after the upbeat poppiness of Saint Motel and the catchy grandiosity of LP, it was a complete different story. Their sound was adventurous, dark, complex, varied and multi-influenced. Having never heard of them, it was a bit too much to digest at the same time (not that I don’t like the challenge), and it is also difficult to describe.
Six on stage, they brought layered and complex melodies with sometimes a sort of shoegazing krautrock psychedelia, whatever you can understand from this – with a large emphasis on drum beats almost techno, disco at times or even industrial on some songs, a big insistent and repetitive sound on many songs, and a frontman/singer switching from guitar, keyboard, or just the vocals from one song to another.
The large use of pedals, the stormy sound they often created, mixed with Stephen Patterson’s falsetto was sometimes more about ambiance and attitude than melody, although it was not always the case, especially when Patterson was on keyboard. Curiously, at these moments they made me think about a band like Coldplay if Coldplay was actually good and taking some risks.
Alternating between songs from their different albums ‘It’s Frightening’ (‘The Salesman’, ‘Rudie Falls’, ‘Percussion Gun’) and ‘Fort Nightly’ (‘While we go Dancing’, ‘Kid on my Shoulders, ‘The Plot’), and curiously ending not playing much from their last one ‘Milk Famous’ – according to the notes I got from the setlist, they only played one song, ‘Temporary’, but there are a few tracks I couldn’t identify.
Their style was nervous and badass anxious from start to finish, beaten by restless beats produced by their two drummers Jamie Levinson and Matthew Clark, decorated by the elaborated, textured reverb-soaked guitars of Alex Even and Gregory Roberts and haunted by Patterson’s voice either floating like a moan à la Tom Yorke or ferociously screaming.
Strangely, when I listened to their stuff on Spotify, what I heard was not exactly making me relive their complex arrangements and complicated rhythms. No, the live show was darker, much harder to follow and more layered than that! But since everyone is saying their new album is much more experimental and courageous than the previous ones, it could be a case of rearrangements of old tunes to make them sound more like the new stuff.
They closed their set with their most famous one ‘Percussion Gun’ off their 2009 ‘It’s Frightening’ album, a wild debauchery of drum beats dueling with each other and acting like a machine gun gone crazy. Despite their seriousness on stage, they were a fun rhythmic and challenging band to watch, cleverly contrasting with the rest of the evening.