REVIEW: Byrdhouse Records Presents: Her New Knife, Bruiser and Bicycle, and Mall Goth
01/01/2025 at El Dorado, Troy
Her New Knife from Philadelphia drenched a rainy New Years Day evening with dreamy shoegaze and slow-burning experimental lo-fi.
Their music is bedroomy, ethereal, and gloomy all at once with brittle, metallic guitar tones and thick overdrive. Edgar Atencio’s vocals run steadily just below the surface of each song; almost purring each word before letting loose a sudden echoing scream the next instant. The group played tracks from their latest EP chrome is lullaby, including “vitamin beauty”, a thumping heartbeat of a song that features a droning vacuum cleaner sound similar to the one in My Bloody Valentine’s “Only Shallow” (an easy comparison for the genre, but a classic nevertheless) and “purepurepure”–oblique, dark, and industrial.
Mall Goth from Albany/Binghamton kicked off the night and sweetened up the room with their fresh uptempo, “jangle rock” sound. Their newest single “Spider Bite” has a delightfully ‘90s alt indie rock feel reminiscent of the English DIY band Marine Girls or Grass Widow. Even though their name might suggest something more sulky and brooding, their music is a few notches warmer than that; living in a tender, young-love neighborhood of music with lyrics that read like nostalgic and reflective journal entries straight from the heart.
Albany’s Bruiser and Bicycle closed out the evening with a performance that was like watching someone expertly juggle more and more objects in the air or balancing an impressive series of spinning plates (guitarist Keegan Graziane switched between guitar and keys during the set) Their mid-song time changes feel as though you’re driving along a tight stretch of road and then zooming your way back out into big, wide open spaces. The entire show was a perfect way to start 2025.
