Review: Delta Spirit, Other Lives raise the dead

Photo: Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes joins Delta Spirit onstage.

Tuesday is easily the worst day of the week.

With no weekend afterglow (Monday), no light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel (Wednesday) and certainly not the weekend (Thursday-Sunday), Tuesday is left alone in the week, sad and pathetic.

Thanks to tonight’s Brillobox triple bill of Delta Spirit, Other Lives and Dawes, though, Tuesday got a huge boost this week.

Dawes’ harmonized and rolling heartbreak folk got the quiet, stiff crowd at least a little warmer, but the haunted classic rock meditations of Other Lives (think a prettier Shearwater) actually got some feet moving, even if ever so slightly.

What separates Other Lives from the near-countless other mope-Americana bands touring in plaid shirts and serious faces (see: Lucero, Evangelicals) is the radiant Jenny Hsu, who, sitting unassumingly at the corner of the stage, grounded each song with her slow rumbling cello. Though the instrument never took center stage (see: Cursive’s The Ugly Organ) it provided a beautiful, lush backdrop for singer Jesse Tabish’s light, hollow voice to waltz through the band’s subtly disarming melodies.


Photo: Other Lives' Jesse Tabish

Other Lives proved a perfect match for the other side of the mope-Americana coin — headliners Delta Spirit took the stage after a 20 minutes respite to the welcoming applause of all 50 or so people who, like me, decided that it was time for a more lively Tuesday.

Like a less swamp rock, more soulful Creedence Clearwater Revival, Delta Spirit chugged through its hour-plus set with bottled energy always on the edge of bursting.

Singer Matt Vasquez, his jeans rolled into black workman boots, stayed closer to the edge than anyone — the short, baby-faced front man with lost eyes has such a strong conviction to dragging his voice through gravel on long notes and wading through each song’s slow melody that it’s hard not to believe his pained-heart songwriter aesthetic.

Particularly convincing was the bitter slow dance “House Built for Two,” with it’s chorus, “Well it’s true, I built this for you. This house built for two, it’s too small for you,” paired with Vasquez’s slight signs of self-assurance — after lines well-sung, he’ll often nod to himself, to the audience, to the music, his eyes closed and fingers tightened — made the torture and piano-sprinkled ballad sound like it could’ve been about murder.


Photo: Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit

Vasquez’ inner monologue has a two-fold effect. First, it lets the audience know that he’s real — not one note over-rehearsed and no reaction fully expected, I got the impression that Vasquez was as effected by the sounds created by his band as the audience. Maybe more.

Second, or rather an extension of the first point, Vasquez’ impassioned performance through the entire set gave a truth to the show that few bands achieve. The guy could’ve been singing about a penchant for mail order brides and I would’ve thought his was a noble cause.

Delta Spirit’s dual guitar and often three drum (along with drummer Brandon Young, guitarist Sean Walker and pianist Kelly Winrich took turns pounding — the heavier tunes saw all three attack at once) thunder paired gorgeously with Vasquez’ post-punk-with-some-pain vocals.

The music of a track like “Children,” with a churning percussion section and an almost-playful melody (note: almost), molded beautifully into one heavy wall of twanging rock and reverb.

The stuttering stomp of “People C’Mon” swung with the drunken energy of a bar fight and the piano-shuffling “Trashcan” could’ve been the best song Dr. Dog never recorded.

But the selling point of Delta Spirit, at least in a live setting, will always be Vasquez. By the end of the 15-song set, with the gang chorus of “Crippler King” pushing the band to yell at the audience and the audience to yell back, Vasquez might as well have been an old man drained of prayer in church — who was just touched by the spirit.

Photos courtesy Mahsa Borhani. Check her out here.