The Joy Formidable + The Dig - Mercury Lounge (New York, NY; May 1, 2010)

To compare conditions inside Mercury Lounge on Saturday night to the bowels of a blast furnace might be an understatement. Yet a capacity crowd endured the stifling heat to bear witness to a three-piece out of North Wales, The Joy Formidable, as well as their tour mates for the North American leg of their 2010 world romp, Brooklyn-based The Dig. New York City greeted this occasion by indulging in its annual habit of foregoing idyllic spring weather entirely, skipping straight to summer temperatures and putrescent humidity.

During their set, The Joy Formidable’s bassist Rhydian Dafydd was losing fluids at such a pace that he seemed in real danger of reducing to powder form. Lead vocalist/guitarist Ritzy Bryan remarked that she could not recall ever being quite so hot at a show. And how drummer Matt Thomas survived under his shag and beard, I have no idea. All this description is meant to set up a more apt comparison. May 1st at Mercury Lounge felt like the ninth month in the womb: cramped, hot and primed for evacuation. Creators of epic audio that begs for larger spaces to fill, TJF is not long for such intimate environs.

TJF’s debut EP, A Balloon Called Moaning, which gets its North American release on May 4th, provides fair warning that the auditory onslaught will be immediate and unrelenting. My suspicions were confirmed as I watched Ritzy and Rhydian set down an array of distortion pedals at their feet: the necessary tools for a trio intent on manufacturing an impressive amount of sturm und drang.  TJF mines the rich vein of noise pop originally tapped by acts like My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Cocteau Twins to produce something beautifully oxymoronic: melodic cacophony. However, TJF is more muscular than the shoegazing style. They don’t reach their panoramic aural peaks—where anxiety and ecstasy (of the powerful and insatiable variety, mind you) endlessly spar with one another—by way of dreamy builds. Instead, TJF tracks are hurtling upward from the onset, and the listener is flung full force into the fray.

Take the blistering “The Last Drop,” TJF’s third offering of the evening, unleashed without introduction to propulsive guitar and bass that shredded and soaked you in accelerant. Then, the chorus came in and set those julienned remains ablaze. It was then, at the roar’s crescendo, with her eyes widened and fixed on some distant point, that Ritzy repeatedly and full-throatedly implored, “How come it’s all around me?” Enveloped by the sound, you asked the same question, anticipated no answer and loved every second.

Ritzy was delightfully animated throughout the set, alternating between death glares and thousand mile stares, poised to twist the knife or survey the arctic expanse. Rhydian and Matt put forth equally monumental efforts, despite inhospitable conditions, to deliver a live set that equaled the grandeur and energy promised by TJF’s superb freshman release. As I stated from the onset, this group seems destined for bigger, for better. Count your blessings and catch their “secret show” at Mercury Lounge on May 10th, while the gestation period lasts.

Finally, a tip of the hat to The Dig, an airtight foursome for whom I also predict ever-expanding notoriety. Guitarist David Baldwin and bassist Emile Mosseri trade off singing responsibilities, Erick Eiser helms the keyboards and guitar, while drummer Jamie Alegre pounds out a steely spine for each track and keeps things metronomically sound to the nth degree. Expect to get live—albeit with an appropriate amount of braggadocio to engage the audience—what you hear in their recordings. This band delivers propulsive tracks with an almost martial efficiency. Their songs tend to establish a jaunty pace from the get-go and march inexorably towards a gratifyingly bombastic conclusion. “Two Sisters in Love” typifies this approach and was the track I found myself humming at set’s end. But while the Dig displays mathematical economy and harbors no frivolous sound, this is done not with sterility but with a strut. Indeed, the Dig’s concluding number evoked the delightfully filthy thump of Billy Squire’s classic ode to ‘bating, “The Stroke.” This, I assure you, is intended to be high praise. I fucking love that song.

DOWNLOAD: The Joy Formidable - The Last Drop (MP3) or Follow us for more The Joy Formidable MP3s (Twitter)

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