Girls & Real Estate @ The Black Cat
Girls @ the Black Cat. Photo by Holly Le.
Yet the surfing fun times never surfaced in the San Francisco two-piece's set at the Cat. Instead, Christopher Owens and J.R. White played a perfectly morose set -- a sort of surf-gaze version of their infectiously melodic 2009 full length, Album. Only one single, "Lust for Life," seemed to rise to the tempo set by Girls's recording. Every other number dragged. In part, the cool tempo was a feature, not a bug: The band employed a huge snare drum sound, the kind that would be right at home on a spacey dub record. The spare rhythm-and-bass section served the recording well, but more activity might have moved the live versions along.
Owens's voice is the standout feature to Girls, and Girls sounds like Buddy Holly on a West Coast vision quest as a result. At the Black Cat, though, Owens sounded more like Lil' Wayne covering Mazzy Star. He didn't disappoint live, exactly, but the slower, dubbier sound left him straining to support notes that had no business being so long.
The set by Girls dragged, but the band's approach to rock – melodies as crisp as Peter Bjorn and John but with fuzzed and frayed edges – still makes for an artful performance. Opening act Real Estate suffered from the same surf slowdown, yet brought with them none of Girls's redeeming features. In fact, Real Estate hardly brought verses. Over several meandering numbers, the song only changed because vocals appeared – and disappeared as abruptly.
Style revivals like surf-punk are easy to pull off... on paper. The surf-gaze angle is more novel, if less invigorating. What it tells is that the carefree summer guitar sound isn't as easy as it's supposed to sound.
