The platonic best of South By Southwest is stumbling upon a band you’ve by no means heard and discovering a brand new favourite for all times. The actuality is that almost all bands are common, and there’s extra noise than sign inside the overwhelming number of performers at Austin’s annual trade bacchanal. So every time it truly occurs — whenever you wander right into a room and are gobsmacked, delighted, electrified — it’s to be celebrated, to not be taken as a right.
That’s the way it went Wednesday afternoon throughout Brooklyn Vegan’s get together at Mohawk. When Militarie Gun wrapped up on the out of doors stage, I wandered indoors to see who was enjoying and shortly realized it was Sweet Pill, a five-person emo band from Philadelphia. Admittedly, Sweet Pill usually are not completely obscure. They’re signed to the perennially glorious Topshelf Records, and a fast search by way of my inbox revealed a couple of dozen press releases selling final yr’s Where The Heart Is. But a music blogger’s e-mail account is form of like the net model of Austin throughout SXSW all yr spherical, and Sweet Pill received misplaced within the wash.
You can belief that I’ll be paying shut consideration for the following announcement as a result of holy shit! Sweet Pill! They had been so arresting at Mohawk that I needed to see them once more Thursday night time at Topshelf’s official SXSW showcase at Cheer Up Charlie’s, the place their efficiency on the out of doors stage round midnight was even higher. Where The Heart Is is a really robust file, however I really feel blessed to have found Sweet Pill by way of their reside present. These 5 are nice musicians, nice songwriters, nice performers, and seemingly nice associates too. Onstage, that every one provides as much as an immensely charming powerhouse.
Sweet Pill pull collectively a couple of completely different strains of emo. There’s the inevitable resemblance to early Paramore, what with singer Zayna Youssef belting out melodic rallying cries whereas the remainder of the band roars and surges in anthemic vogue. There’s additionally fairly a little bit of the twinkly, mathy, post-American Football guitar virtuosity that popped off within the early 2010s emo-revival period, in addition to an epic heaviness seemingly borrowed from post-hardcore. It all combines seamlessly into songs that obliterate the distinctions between energy and finesse, between pop and hardcore, between emo and the bigger continuum of crowd-pleasing rock ‘n’ roll.
Guitarists Jayce Williams and Sean McCall have a telepathic connection. Their devices interlock majestically all through a Sweet Pill present, generally buying and selling off exact rapid-fire riffs, different instances converging on the identical laborious, heavy energy chord and beating it into submission. I’d say it jogs my memory of Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. besides the sound right here is way extra “Warped Tour at its impeccable peak” than “performatively ragtag CBGB revival.” The interaction between the guitars is so charming that you simply would possibly miss what number of dazzling drum fills Chris Kearney works in with out shedding the crisp, violent snap that drives Sweet Pill’s songs ahead and dramatically halts them at simply the proper instances. The three of them plus bassist Ryan Cullen are all extraordinarily well-rehearsed; slightly than get slowed down in such technical music, they make intricate compositions really feel fluid and resoundingly alive.
But the star of a Sweet Pill present is undoubtedly Youssef, some of the charismatic frontpeople I’ve seen in years. She bounds across the stage with wild-eyed enthusiasm: stomping and thrashing like Henry Rollins, communing with the gang by way of her endlessly expressive face, relishing her bandmates’ prowess with finger-points and air-guitar outbursts. She is a bracingly bodily presence, a real performer. Just as importantly, the girl can sing. Song after track, she sends her voice hovering with out hitting a bum observe. It’s exceptional. Occasionally, Youssef switches over right into a grotesque roar that implies she might simply as simply entrance a far nastier band than this. But I’m glad she’s fronting Sweet Pill as a result of Sweet Pill are unbelievable.