Upon returning to Brooklyn from a weekend in sunny, 73-degree New Orleans (where Nothing Studios was spotted, but Greg Dulli's old haunt was not), Allison and I headed to Bowery Ballroom last Monday to catch the second-ever New York show by Serena-Maneesh, a Norwegian septet whose eponymous record came out late last year. They are a challenge to describe, both musically and physically, but I think a critic for The Guardian newspaper summed them up nicely when he wrote, " ... [Serena] are to Primal Scream and the Mary Chain what Primal Scream and the Mary Chain were to the Velvets and the Stones."
I first heard this group late last year courtesy of Pitchfork, who previewed a track from the band's self-titled album called "Selina's Melodie Fountain." The reviewer hooked me with a comparison to My Bloody Valentine that turned out to be wholly justified. The track is a stormer, oscillating between a jumpy Stooges riff and a cascading tidal wave of sound that evokes everything great about the shoegazer sound. I was an immediate convert.
Buoyed by Pitchfork's endorsement, a newly-inked U.S. record a deal and a fistful of hype, the band flew to the States in late January for a mini-tour that included a stop at Mercury Lounge. While I was sold on much of their album by this point, I could not shake the feeling of skepticism I have about all new bands tipped to be the "next big thing from abroad" (ask me about my thoughts on Editors sometime). They kept the sold-out crowd waiting for 45 minutes thanks to a gear breakdown, but they erased any doubts I had by the time they got to the crescendo of opener "Drain Cosmetics." All the beauty, vigor and squall hinted at on the album was there in spades, and my god was it loud. Easily one of the loudest gigs I have seen in years, and almost painfully so. When you read old reviews of Mary Chain gigs that describe them as deafening, you don't really understand what that means until you see something like this.
It was also fascinating to see the band in the flesh, as they are quite the motley crew. They tour with three guitarists, a bassist, a drummer a violinist and a backup singer, all in the name of recreating as much atmosphere live as possible. The violinist was the biggest (and most pleasant) surprise because you would never know that all the haunting atmospherics on the album are actually that guy playing through loads of effects. Smart move to bring him on tour. Emil Nikolaisen, the singer/guitarist/bandleader (pictured), is quite the fashion spectacle, sporting a pencil-thin moustache and loads of scarves (prompting more than a few comparisons to Jack Sparrow). The woman who plays bass looks like the blonde from Abba, only she is 7 feet tall. But the backing vocalist can't be an inch over 5'3". And the drummer wears eyeshadow.
Flash-forward to Bowery Ballroom, and the band is two members short (the third guitarist's plane was struck by lightning in Norway and the backing singer is ill). Disaster? Hardly. The band was in spectacular form playing a revamped and vastly more experimental set, which emphasized the instrumental tracks from their latest album to great effect. Nikolaisen is an animal onstage, thrashing away at his guitar like an epileptic, while the drummer recalls the solid thump of Moe Tucker and keeps things from getting too unwieldy. The bassist was visibly uncomfortable having to sing backup, but unless you had seen the first show you would never have known the difference. As was the case at Mercury, they ended without an encore and left the stage in a haze of noise and feedback, but not before the unfailingly earnest Nikolaisen thanked the audience profusely for even bothering to show up. Class.
To be certain, Serena-Maneesh is not for everyone. I noticed more than a few hipsters walked out of both gigs (though no one screamed "parody"), while others stayed but could not disguise their bafflement. The band has been touted by many of the same critics and blogs that typically fawn over competent but otherwise unspectacular indie darlings like Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and The National, and I bet more than a few people showed up expecting something else. Or perhaps they hoped that indie folkster Sufjan Stevens, who guests on the album and attended both shows, would join them onstage. Regardless, hipsters with a strong aversion to music that feels even remotely dangerous will be revolted by this band, and deservedly so. There is nothing pretty, crisp or gentle about them, and that is precisely why they are worth following.
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