Salient

Palace This!, Fucktronica, Spraydoll

By Matthew Proctor | 1 Sep, 2008

I had been led to believe (by more than one person) that I was going to hate Palace This! Apparently my not being a lesbian had something to do with this. These people were wrong.

Palace This! pretty much rule. A sexy ass-post-punk backing fronted by CHRA-HAY-ZEE screamed vocals. Hot.

The singer has a very deep, powerful voice, which is kind of funny when you hear her singing “Please don’t touch me in my private places.” But in a good way. The lyrics are overtly sexual, and provide a strange balance to the serious backing. The music is vaguely dark, but effects are all used tastefully. The typical song is built around tight drumming, with simple attractive melodies on keyboard and guitar gently decaying. Tasty.

In fact, I wasn’t even going to review this concert. But they were really good, and I was all “Dudes need to know this shit.”

However Fucktronica (now known as Tissuette) did NOT impress. A new indie electronica outfit, they sound a lot like Frase+Bri, and are similarly boring. Casiotone has been done to death, and if you’re going to revisit, you’d better bring something new to the table. The grating boy/girl indie aesthetic is really lame. I have the comment “Guys this is embarrassing” in my notes. Draw your own conclusions.

I feel the most telling part of their set was when the guitarist started one song out of time. I thought this was done intentionally. IT WASN’T.

Spraydoll are a Big Black-styled math rock band, also just starting out apparently. They were not good enough to convince me to stick around for more than a couple of songs, so I didn’t.