I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: May 20, 2019] Emma Ruth Rundle

The night after Animals as Leaders, I was excited to check out Mono, primarily because I assumed it wouldn’t be all that crowded.  In fact, I didn’t even have a ticket ahead of time (risky if you’re driving over an hour, but it worked out fine).

My friends Liz and Eleanor had given me a Union Transfer gift card for my birthday and you can only use it at the box office, so I figured it was a nice time try it out.

The stage was pushed far forward to lessen the floor space (which is a cool thing they can do at UT).  I rather like when the stage is pushed forward as it makes the show intimate without being crowded.

I hadn’t heard of Emma Ruth Rundle and didn’t know anything about her.   I had no idea that she had a following (she has released three albums and plays in some other bands).

The friends who had given me the gift card were also supposed to go to this show, but they couldn’t.  So I was thinking of them as Emma Ruth Rundle played.  We had all seen Sharon Van Etten together, so she was in my mind as Emma Ruth started playing and I imagined that this was what Sharon would have sounded like if she had gone dark instead of poppy on her new alum.

I’m not sure that’s exactly fair, but I found Emma’s voice to be not dissimilar to Sharon’s

Rundle’s albums all came out on Sargent House who have released albums by Chelsea Wolfe, Boris and Deafheaven, which should give a grounding for what the band sounds like.

The band (with Evan Patterson on guitars, Todd Cook on bass, and Neal Argabright on drums) opened with some slow droning guitars.  They were much heavier than on the recorded version and they set a great atmosphere.

I wanted to get a picture of Cook with his beard, but UT’s lighting isn’t always conducive to good pictures.

It took a couple of minutes before Emma started singing (in fact i wasn’t even sure if she would sing since Mono is all-instrumental).  But her voice was great–a kind of whisper-singing in which her voice clearly stood out.

She played a number of songs from her new album On Dark Horses.  Patterson played some interesting solos, but Rundle also played a fair number.  The songs also had their fair share of build up and release–some loud parts that didn’t last for too long before they returned to the quieter, more brooding sound.

There was a guy in the front of the stage who was really into it and every time they reached a crescendo he would raise his hand as if receiving a benediction from on high.  During a quiet pause between songs he stated loudly, “you guys are killing it,” which made Emma smile briefly.

After a couple of older songs, which I obviously didn’t realize were older, she told us that “Dark Horse” was for her sister.

Most of the songs are around five minutes, but she stretched them all out a little more—her set was about an hour.  They ended with a stretched out and brooding “Heaven” which was an excellent set-ender–full of power and catharsis with a slight not to U2’s “Bullet the Blue Sky” in the ending jam.

It was a great set.

 

1. Races ℘
2. Light Song ℘
3. Fever Dreams ℘
4. Apathy on the Indiana Border ℘
5. Protection ⊗
6. Marked for Death ⊗
7. Darkhorse ℘
8. Control ℘
9. Heaven ⊗

⊗ = Marked for Death (2016)
℘ = On Dark Horses (2018)