Live Review: Le Loup at the Mercury Lounge [03.23.08]

Despite whatever preconceptions the heavy handed title of their debut (The Throne Of The Third Heaven Of The Nations' Millennium General Assembly) may lend itself to, witnessing the force of Le Loup's layered harmonies, horn swells, and offbeat handclaps live leaves little room for intellectualizing the shapes and colors of their mythicized burning, vacant cities. Regardless, the rumination over such dark days as well as the simultaneous fright and hope of being able to surrender to it all still somehow manage to innately resonate. The band doesn't appear to even give themselves the time to stop and think, as they throw themselves into their chaotic yet meticulous arrangements with an urgency as if buildings outside the venue were in fact collapsing.




The band's intensity is relentless, and though you might not expect it from a frontman who initially composed his songs entirely on a laptop and recruited his musical collective through online message boards, it is in that respect that Sam Simkoff really stands out - when not fiendishly plucking his ukulele or forcing his way to the keyboard on which another band member already plays, he howls and flails limbs, easily rivaling the spasticity of Thom Yorke dancing circa Kid A. But unlike Le Loup's album there is no calm after the storm; minimal tracks like "Breathing Rapture" and "To the Stars!" erupt in and out of Mogwai-like fields of noise without rest, and more epic songs like "I Had a Dream I Died" become far more sprawling and dynamic.




With Throne of the Third Heaven..., Le Loup gave us a precisely constructed, very particular landscape. They may dwell in the same territory live, but the passion and fervency with which they perform opens that world up into something bigger than them or the crowd. Just as Simkoff reverently refers to all the musicians, designers and promoters of Le Loup, both the band the audience that night were part of one collective, knowingly or not. If only more artists could give their heart to us, give their soul to us.


[Photos by Adam Weinberg. Full gallery can be seen here.]