Written by: Paul Gleason
Warpaint are a fiery band in a cool time, a quartet brimming with passion and love. Every note that emanates from their instruments and voices embraces their audience without a trace of irony. Warpaint wear their hearts on their sleeves, making inclusive music that elevates their growing number of fans with its earnestness and joy.
Warpaint are on a mission – to discover the way in which a rock ‘n’ roll band can enter a person’s life, stay there, and alter their perception of the exuberance that their life can have. With a few exceptions (Elephant Stone, for example), Warpaint are lone wolfs on this mission, which became all the more apparent at Milwaukee’s Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, on Saturday, October 4, 2014.
Quite frankly, it became blatantly obvious, as Warpaint lost themselves in their music, in a set list derived from their three restlessly and relentlessly creative releases: 2009’s Exquisite Corpse EP, 2010’s The Fool, and this year’s Warpaint.
And the key to the tunes on these records (and Warpaint’s performance of them at the Pabst) is their exuberance. As William Blake says, “Exuberance is beauty.”
On Saturday night, Wairpant’s music reached a new level of exuberance in its live incarnation. When singer-guitarist-keyboardist Emily Kokal abandoned whatever instrument she was playing to sing lead on songs like “Undertow” and “Biggy,” she lifted her arms above her head and knelt on the stage, becoming one with the band’s atmospheric groove. She was a vision of freedom – one with the beautiful sound that elevated both her and the audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxBvRgenbBc
Throughout the set bassist Jenny Lee Lindberg and drummer Stella Mozgawa provided the groove, building one extended, set-long rhythmic foundation that proved that they’re one of the best rhythm sections in music. Mozgawa hit hard and powerfully, and her diversity as a player was second-to-none. On “Bees,” “Composure,” and “Disco //Very,” her beats sounded as if she was born to play psychedelic dance music; and on “Keep It Healthy” and “CC,” she respectively added looping catchiness and dark menace.
And Lindberg demonstrated why she’s quickly becoming recognized as one of the best bass players on the planet. Like her great forebear Peter Hook, she had an uncanny ability to carry groove and melody at the same time. On “Bees,” she played lead bass, opening the song with her instrument sounding like a riff off The Velvet Underground’s first record before settling into that terrific dance groove with Mozgawa. And her more subtle moments – on songs like “Feeling Alright” – made the bass an instrument of introspective beauty.
Singer-guitarist-keyboardist Theresa Wayman was perhaps the band’s strongest lead vocalist of the night, especially in her performance of the band’s splendid and hooky single “Love Is to Die” – one of the best songs of 2014. Wayman sang like she was invested in each note, and her dancing showed her natural ability as a front woman.
As guitarists, Kokal and Wayman jammed out off-kilter arpeggios and riffs that derived from shoegaze and dream pop. But the Lindberg-Mozgawa rhythm section – in a flip-flop of traditional rock ‘n’ roll, which gave Warpaint their experimental edge – was the true lead instrument. Kokal showed this on “Love Is to Die,” with her arpeggios augmenting the groove and Wayman’s vocal melodies. Kokal and Wayman both showed this on “Elephants,” which turned into a noisy, improvisational jam to which all four members contributed as one.
“One” – this was the key word for Warpaint on Saturday night. It’s very rare for band members to complement each other so well that they play as one and retain their individual and identifiable musical personalities (think about The Beatles and Joy Division). When Lindberg grooved to the music, all laid back at center stage; when Mozgawa attacked her drums; when Wayman suddenly started to dance; when Kokal reached one of her high notes – Warpaint revealed something of their individual personalities. But they always played together as one, especially when they sang harmonies (and smiled at each other throughout the set).
But perhaps the best thing about Saturday night’s show at the Pabst was that it indicated that Warpaint haven’t completed their mission. They’re a better live band than when I saw them this summer in Milwaukee – and we can all expect their already essential discography to get better and better.
