NXNE Review: Lucius, Adelaide Hall, June 18

lucius

There was one point during the NXNE showcase on Thursday night when a girl decided to showcase her voice by doing that Mariah Carey hand thing where her hand would go up and down according to the note, to which I turned to my friend and said “does she know Lucius is playing tonight?”. The reason why I said this was because I’m pretty sure the girls in Lucius were brought into this world specifically to sing and harmonize. Each time I see them, I become more and more convinced of this argument. They are fantastic at what they do.

Lucius is a group from Brooklyn whose excellent 2014 album exhibited music styles from doo wop to surf pop to indie. The band loves to harmonize and they love percussion (all five members have at least a drum near them). Their live show is an accentuation of all those things and it is highly enjoyable. Some bands try to hit you with cool, some bands try to hit you with style but Lucius just hits you with unbridled enthusiasm and its devastatingly contagious. Their slow burning version of the track “Go Home” with its sparse drumming and spaced out vocals was good enough to shut up the Red Bull crowd, no small feat in itself. Highlight for me as always is Tempest, a pop song as good as any to have been released in the past few years.

One of the highlights of NXNE for me

Posted on by Ricky in North By Northeast

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Britpop lovin Chinaman, consumer of all things irrelevant. Toronto Raptors fan.