A&E
WHCL brings paris_monster to Annex
By Dylan Horgan ’17
September 22, 2016
Tags a+e
You know it’s a good sign when you’re searching for a band comparison to make, but ultimately can’t find a fitting match. A pithy “The Weeknd is an R-rated Michael Jackson” type of proclamation might make me seem like a guy who knows what he’s talking about, even if I’m just lazily avoiding adjectives. I can’t think of any satisfying encapsulation of the “paris_monster sound” however, so sit back; I’m about to actually do my job and describe my experience.
The hazy yellow-lighting outlines two humanoid silhouettes, one slouched over a guitar and the other manning a drum kit. This is paris_monster. Both look like they’ve been dragged out of a college first-year’s Pink Floyd poster: long, shaggy hair suggesting an inheritance from a bygone era’s rock gods. And there is a bit of Classic Rock in paris_monster’s DNA. Drummer and lead singer Josh Dion’s soulful vocals soar over his groovy, hard-hitting drum beats, occasionally punctuating climactic moments with piercing falsetto shrieks. One shouldn’t lump paris_monster in with superficially similar two-piece bands like the Black Keys and White Stripes however, groups whose approach to music seems ludditic in contrast to paris_monsters’ experimental sound. Dion’s onstage multi-tasking (holding down the beat while messing around with electronic samples) combined with guitarist Geoff Kraley’s feedback and delay-driven style results in a far more atmospheric sound than those aforementioned bands would ever produce. Part of me hopes that more of a muscular, guitar riff-centered influence finds its way into their music, but as of now they aren’t that kind of band. Think dancing, not head-banging.
paris_monster is a good band, a group worth checking out even outside a live context. Within this particular evening’s context however, I’d have to say it was a less than transcendent experience. Nothing against the performers or those students who showed up––quite the opposite actually. There just weren’t enough people there. Even with the annex half-sealed off, the venue was still unnecessarily large. I realize that this is the complaint of a spoiled human-being: to go any concert where the venue is at about 10 percent of capacity. The cavernous, open spaces just soak up all of the energy in the room. There has to be some sort mathematical principle that could illustrate this, an attendance-to-enjoyment ratio perhaps? Anyway, the crowd did their best to make the band feel wanted, dancing from open to close (I’m counting rhythmic swaying as dancing, for anybody who disputes my account). This is a more awkward task than you’d expect when the number of people remaining at the end of the night can be easily, individually counted.
All of this to say: “Hamilton’s student body. Go to these concerts. They come complimentary with tuition. I know you aren’t doing anything important.”