LIVE REVIEW: Cursive, Capgun Coup, and Winston Audio

Is Cursive at a crossroads? Has the band exhausted its popular reach? Are we now forced to contend with a group that—at least in terms of public consciousness and acceptance—is sliding down an increasingly precipitous slope? I am not exactly sure, but these were the kinds of thoughts that were rattling around my brain Monday night at Lenny’s as I stared across a room that was at best half full. Think about that. Cursive. Half full. At Lenny’s. It seems inconceivable.

I mean, just a few short months ago I saw Cursive headline the Variety Playhouse in front of an audience that was easily four times the crowd that showed up on Monday. Of course, you could point a finger of blame on a couple of extenuating circumstances: First, Monday nights are typically awful in terms of turnout and, second, post-metal juggernaut Pelican was playing at the Earl, which I’m sure helped to trim the fat off the crowd. But even if you take those factors into consideration, Monday’s numbers still seem ludicrous. Where did everyone go? Where’s the Cursive love?

It’s not like their output has been suffering. While most fans and critics cite 2003′s The Ugly Organ as the band’s high water mark, there are many—myself included—who saw 2006′s followup, Happy Hollow, as the genuine creative breakthrough for the band. More direct, focused and conceptual than any of its predecessors, the album saw Cursive artfully exploring the outer edges of their craft while thoughtfully tackling bigger subjects—religion and society, war, the meaning of existence—than the usual emo-angst themes of lost love, broken homes and existential isolation. It was an impressive achievement and a clear signal that the quartet was committed to developing and expanding their sound in a multitude of directions.

And for its part, the group’s latest, Mama, I’m Swollen, while not entirely the fulfillment of Happy Hollow’s promise, is still mostly excellent. It’s even popped into a few of the ubiquitous year end “Best of” lists (including our own, coming soon). The record is a slight departure for the band, eschewing some of their usual guitar-driven exclamations in favor of brass sections, strings, and the swelling of electronic ambiance. Lyrically it finds frontman Tim Kasher treading familiar waters, offering his melodramatic ruminations on love, strained or dissolved relationships, and the crushing blandness of suburban living. While not their finest work, it’s a still a strong, cohesive album worthy of inclusion in the band’s mostly exceptional catalog.

So again I ask: what happened? Again, I can only say that I’m not entirely sure. But what I do know is that Cursive playing at Lenny’s—aberration or not—is an opportunity to be embraced and absolutely not to be missed.

I walked into the show late and local rockers Winston Audio were already playing. This was my first time seeing or hearing the band in any capacity, and I have to say that I was really impressed. The group’s wall of Southern rock guitars and hyper-charged four on the floor percussion is reminiscent of a raw, more punk oriented Kings of Leon with a little more underground grit and a lot less rock star swagger. There are also echoes of Manchester Orchestra, which makes sense considering that Winston Audio is part of MO’s burgeoning Favorite Gentlemen collective. Armed with a simple arsenal of raucous riffs and buckets full of earnest energy, the band proceeded to tear through their set, unleashing one buzzing, guitar-drenched anthem after another. Vocalist/bassist Daniel Dewitt has a deep, reverberating voice that belies his youthful appearance, and much like Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull, he seems to know when to veer from soulful croon to anguished yowl without sounding forced or derivative. Unfortunately, I only made it for a handful of songs, but it was more than enough to convince me to keep these guys on my radar and see where they go in the future.

Much less impressive was Omaha’s Capgun Coup. When the band hit the stage, to me it was like the proverbial needle scratching across the record. Whatever ounce of excitement and exhilaration that Winston Audio left behind in the room was almost immediately sucked out by the messy musical drek that the quintet churned out. I’ll admit that fusing together elements of post-punk, surf, indie pop, and avant noise is a complex and difficult task; it is much to absorb and take in for both the band and the listener. But to do so in a way that is neither cohesive nor tuneful is neither adventurous nor brave; rather, it is just grating, annoying and completely off-putting. I’ll give these guys some measure of credit for originality and for their spirit of taking chances, but that’s about as far as I can go. The only saving grace for me was that I was able to hit the bar for a little longer and work on my buzz for Cursive.

If you’ve never witnessed one, the great thing about a Cursive show is that whereas a lot of established bands tend to focus on new material, Cursive are never afraid to delve into their back catalog and drag out unexpected songs. Sure there are staples that always seem to get played—”Red-Handed Sleight of Hand,” “Big Bang,” and “The Martyr” being but a few—but at every show I’ve ever seen them play, there have always been a handful of “Holy shit! I can’t believe they’re playing this!” moments. To me, it is this atmosphere of unpredictability, along with the group’s time-acquired tightness and live ferocity that make their shows so special. And Monday night was no exception.

As disappointing as the turnout was, playing in a loud, grimy bar allowed the band to get back to their formative roots and I think the sense of intimacy and the ability to more closely bond with their devout fans was an important factor on this tour for Kasher and company. At this point in the band’s life cycle they have embraced who and what they are and they probably realized long ago that mainstream success was not in the cards. So here they were on a Monday night, in a hot and sweaty room, cranking out simmering, hard charging versions of angular scorchers like “Dorothy at Forty” and “Sierra” to a small but eager audience screaming along with every word. While certainly not drawing numbers like previous shows at the Variety Playhouse or the Tabernacle, at least the crowd wasn’t faceless; at least there wasn’t a barrier, a physical separation between artist and fan. Here the band was in their element, traveling nostalgically back to a time of romantic fury, to a time of basement shows and five-dollar hardcore covers.

This was Cursive at their purest—aggressive and abrasive, yet melodically so, alternating between the bruising stomp of tracks like “The Casualty” and “Radiator Hums” to the more sophisticated indie-punk-pop amalgams of “I Couldn’t Love You” and “What Have I Done.” This was Cursive in the prime of their probable twilight—older, wiser and assuredly more beleaguered, but playing with no less emotion or purpose. Just when you thought that the band was going to cruise through a well-deserved encore of a few fan favorites, they drop a blindsiding, scorching, thoroughly devastating cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” on the crowd, with drummer Cully Symington doing his maniacal best to beat, pound, and otherwise leave his kit for dead. It was potent and powerful, calamitous and cathartic. The fact that they allowed the song to boil over into a tempestuous version of “Big Bang” before closing things out with “The Martyr” only heightened the sense that this was a band still capable of greatness, still capable of operating at the peak of their powers.

Where Cursive is headed in the future I have no idea, but for now it appears that the fire is still lit, that much more music could be made, if they choose to do so. Because with this performance they proved themselves to be not only alive and kicking, but as committed and vital as ever.

More Info:
Web: www.cursivearmy.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/cursive
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Cursiveband

MySpace: www.myspace.com/capguncoup

Web: www.winstonaudio.com
MySpace: www.myspace.com/winstonaudio
Twitter: www.twitter.com/winstonaudio