Saul Williams w/ CX Kidtonik & Diallo, American Fangs, No Bird Sing, and Dearling Physique | Varsity Theater | 10/25

Looks like The Knife…check. Instrumentals sound like Bat For Lashes…check. Voice is similar to Antony Hegarty…check. Well, this can only mean one thing. This is Dearling Physique!

They have a charming and theatrical bird/man for a frontman. His visuals and movements combine with the music and make you feel like you’ve left the venue and gone to a world that could only be thought up by Stanley Kubrick or David Lynch. His voice is hauntingly good. The rest of the band looks like a group of cool new wavers. Out of all the local bands, I can’t think of any others who give a performance quite like Dearling. You’ll be seeing a lot more from them.

No Bird Sing are a newer hip hop band. They have a guitarist, a drummer, and a rapper. That’s right. There is no DJ. Though their whole set reminded me of Atmosphere’s “Guarantees,” they made me want to listen. I like the stripped down sound that it provided. It lets you concentrate on his lyrics, and those lyrics are good. He likes A Clockwork Orange. That’s good enough for me to want to like them. I’m sure they’ll be playing around a lot more too.

-

Then we had American Fangs. They are from Texas. I know people drink “purple drank” down there, but I don’t think these fellows do. Their sound is fast-driven pop-punk. They were good in the sense that they played together well. They were energetic. I could see them as a band opening for P.O.S.’s band Building Better Bombs.

-

The next set came out looking like lost members of The Misfits. CX KiDTONiK & Diallo were very engaging with their hump-girls-on-stage set. They were super energetic and very funny. It was fun and entertaining to say the least.

Saul Williams turned into a character named Niggy Tardust for the show. If you couldn’t already tell, this was a play on words from David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust. Williams was looking very glam too. He and his band gave a great performance. It’s good to see a hip hop artist go in the direction he has. I wonder if any of it came from his recent working with Nine Inch Nail’s frontman Trent Reznor. Either way, it makes me like him all the more.