Kata Rokkar — Kata Rokkar – A Bay Area based blog about music, life and stuff by Shawn Robbins.

I wasn’t really aware of the appeal of Metronomy. The band has put out some slightly impressive albums over the years and while I haven’t picked up this year’s The English Riviera, the general consensus leans to the positive. But paint me surprised that the band was able to sell out the Rickshaw Stop for two nights fairly quickly. Even if the Rickshaw is one of the smaller venues, it makes me wonder if they could’ve done the same at The Independent.

Anyway, the opener was Brooklyn’s psych-pop trio New Villager. The band has been around for a few years now but only recently have they released a full length LP of the same name. The band has a very similar voice as early TV on the Radio and experimental prowess that makes a genuine band stick out.

While it would’ve been wise to play Rich Doors, their more poppy and dance worthy song off their latest album. New Villager instead decided to draw out the more unusual songs from their album, complete with backdrop projections from their recent music videos. The projections looked like something taken from deleted scenes from The Fall (2006) or Matthew Barney experiment. The music meshed well with it though and the crowd ate it up. While I believe New Villager is bit more strange than the Metronomy crowd was used to, I do not doubt that they walked away with a few new fans. Especially after the climatic closer Lighthouse; this really brought out the band’s art-soul feel to a satisfying close.

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NewVillager – Rich Doors from NewVillager (2011)

Metronomy took the stage with each member wearing a large circular light on their chest. These lights would synchronize with whatever song the band happened to be playing at the moment, which was majority of the 2011 album, The English Riviera. Songs like The Look and the uplifting We Broke Free (which they opened with) drove the young and energetic crowd into an uncultivated frenzy. Songs from 2008′s Nights Out and 2006 debut Pip Paine made their appearance to much of the audience’s delight.

Heartbreaker took it’s wild turn and Back on the Motorway was greeted with the audience singing along to each lyric while they danced gleefully to it’s infectious beats. Metronomy’s secret weapon with keyboardist/saxophonist Oscar Cash. Oscar was holding down the foundation while the rest of the band was unleashing guitar licks and bass thumps that veer between 80s synth and modern dance-pop. You want to wholeheartedly champion Metronomy’s celebratory strain of unconventional Brit synth-pop, but there are times in their set when the swirl of influences collapses into a cacophony in which their ambition sounds forced.

Joseph Mount’s breathless delivery on Radio Ladio was soulful rather than irritating, and as the evening winds its way on, the band were locked on and increasingly sublime. As they departed, you are left with their audacity ringing in your ears. Perhaps Metronomy is a bit more of a force than I previously assumed. I need to stop assuming. But I do like surprises.

For more photos from this show, click here.

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Metronomy – The Look from The English Riviera (2011)