WIDOWSPEAK at the Silver Dollar Room, Sunday, October 11. Rating: NNN
Widowspeak, the mop-haired Brooklyn foursome, cruised through their opening numbers on Sunday without paying much attention to the audience, working out the title track to brand new long-player All Yours before addressing the crowd. “Happy Thanksgiving,” singer/guitarist Molly Hamilton said. “Is that today or tomorrow?”
While All Yours is a step in a poppier direction than previous records, Widowspeak’s live incarnation is a natural extension of “cosmic American music.” It’s hazy, with the psychedelic wash-away of the Brian Jonestown Massacre or the War On Drugs, plus a heavy dose of Americana.
Mighty pleasing sounds, but the semi-countrified, dreamy ambience tended to get relegated to background noise thanks to a formidable, chatty and drunk weekend Dollar crowd, who also made Hamilton’s between-song mumble indecipherable. The dynamic only really changed when Robert Earl Thomas played his hypnotic guitar solos. It’s not like you can fault concertgoers for having a good time, but Widowspeak are hardly a party band.
The real treat was the combination of Hamilton’s honey-drenched lilt and Thomas’s righteous but restrained guitar wizardry, at its full-tilt best on their last tune: a slow-rising rendition of Girls with Thomas’s six-string bringing us to the crest of the wave and Hamilton easing us slowly down.
music@nowtoronto.com | @MattGeeWilliams
