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Concert reviews Music

Beams at The Horseshoe

BEAMS, LOON CHOIR and JOSE CONTRERAS at the Horseshoe, Thursday, January 29. Rating: NNN


So bands aren’t getting smaller after all. At the Horseshoe for Beams’ 7-inch release party, the local act had seven members onstage, while Ottawa’s Loon Choir right before them had nine. In both cases, less would have been more.Jose Contreras’s (By Divine Right) opening solo set – simple, charming, effective – was evidence of that.

Beams’ use of banjo, lap steel and singing saw helps them stand out from the indie folk pack, and co-frontwomen Anna Mernieks and Heather Mazhar’s intertwined vocals gel so exceptionally well that they often sound as if they’re coming from one source rather than two. The mix of bluegrass instrumentation, noir folk stories, robust songwriting and indie pop was worth braving the snow for.

Sandwiched between, Loon Choir’s Derek Atkinson emoted, bellowed and orated. He talked into an invisible phone, pulled at his hair, frequently checked an imaginary watch and swung an imaginary baseball bat. Behind him, a coterie of band members offset his tortured persona with synth rock so upbeat and theatrical, it was like watching a high school play. Just when you’d decided that two violinists and two keyboardists were the ultimate in overkill, bagpipes appeared.

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