Los Angeles – It’s easy to forget that The Naked and Famous once lived a world away. The Kiwi quintet left their native country two years ago in exchange for the sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles and what may sound like a clichéd budding rock band move is anything but. It’s here where the band changed from a starry-eyed indie pop upstart to a maturing outfit with a more refined and focused approach. The follow up to their certified Gold debut, “Aggressive Me, Passive You”, is only a few weeks old and at The Wiltern on the second night of their tour in support of the new record Thom Powers, guitar and vox, thanks the crowd for showing up, but not before saying, “This is like a hometown gig.”
Realizing that their first album was heavily reliant on electronic production components many of the songs couldn’t properly be recreated live without the aid of sequencing background tracks all in an effort to recapture the album’s synth heavy sound. With that, musicianship won out on the group’s sophomore effort, “In Rolling Waves”, putting emphasis on the importance of being able to perform the new material live minus all this playing to tape business.
The resulting 15-song set was a testament to their newfound live-ness while encapsulating what made them fan favorites in the first place with their poppy, carefree stylings on full display. The energy is high and the lyrical content of the newest batch of songs are emotive, but their greatest strength remains in the harmonic dynamic between Alisa Xayalith, keys and vocals, and her co-band leader/boyfriend, Powers.
The monotonic delivery of the Kid A-esque “The Sun” finds the duo at its strongest. The talkie duet has a growing sense of urgency as it progresses toward letting out an electro wail courtesy of the group’s sound manipulator-in-chief, Aaron Short. The muted cheeriness of TNAF’s newest single, “Hearts Like Ours,” proves the group can still write a hit in the vein of “Young Blood,” but marks a bit of a departure from the saccharine single that has brought them much success.
Between the measured distortion on “I Kill Giants,” a tune Xayalith penned about the loss of her mother at the age of seven, and the romance-turned-resentment of “The Mess” both wade into a moodier, darker territory their first album lacked, but don’t sound like the downers one might expect from such emotional songs. Maintaining its pop sensibilities throughout, TNAF proves songs about loss and love gone wrong can still have that dancey appeal.
Though “Young Blood” garnered the biggest response of the evening it wasn’t the type of set where the audience was there for the sole purpose of hearing a radio favorite, but instead were there to witness a band taking its next step toward fully becoming a household name.
for more on The Naked And Famous go HERE and HERE
Ian Joulain
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