Adobe Underground

 

The London hipsters Bar Italia stopped in town on a school night this week. They are much more engaging live than on record. I should say that their music is much more engaging live; the band members are not engaging at all. They have this shtick where they ignore the audience, which is an odd affectation.

The band seemed to strive for a Velvet Underground hipness -- icy, ironically detached, backlit. But there music is squarely '90s-derivative, in the best sense of the concept of borrowing and molding sounds. They offer a strain of shoegaze like "Lush," but also atonal post-punk like the Mekons. You can also hear the Pixies and Pavement in their song structures. Guitars occasionally ring like they did in Guided by Voices songs in the late '90s. What sometimes feels limp on their recordings pops with more edge in person.

 

The three main players all share vocals -- Sam Fenton and Jezmi Fehmi on guitars, and Nina Cristante, the ostensible front person. I wondered at first why her vocals were buried most of the night, but it became apparent that she is thin in both body and voice -- more Liz Phair than Kim Gordon. But the band was tight. Their rhythm section is apparently the province of hired guns. Whoever their drummer was stole the show at times, with tight timekeeping and muscular fills.

When they came out for an encore, the audience needled them to the point of finally responding. Cristante muttered "You're ruining it," which came off more like an admission that the band is trapped in a somewhat paralyzing routine. Maybe we helped them find an exit ramp from the stifling purview of dilettantes to a warmer live experience. 

BONUS TRACKS

One of their best songs, "Punkt," has a bit of a "Bull in the Heather" vibe:

 

A two-song encore ended with the trippy "Skylinny":

 

They closed their main set with the anthemic "Worlds Greatest Emoter." Look closely at the beginning of this live version, and you can see Cristante actually break character and acknowledge the crowd:

 

 Here they are at a place actually called the Velvet Underground, in Toronto, with the hypnotic "Nurse!":

 

Here's a full live set from Los Angeles last June: