In the fall of 2021, LA-based Liily released TV or Not TV, their debut LP, which was an industrial and more rhythmic turn from their previous, smaller releases. Dark and profoundly noisy, it was indebted not only to fellow west-coast noise merchants like The Garden but even more so to the booming post-punk scene flourishing right now across the UK. Strange, unpredictable, and volatile as ever, the band begin a new leg of their tour at Boston’s Brighton Music Hall as the head of a Cerberus-like lineup featuring some of the most inventive, dynamic performers from both coasts.
Completing the trifecta are Catcher and Model/Actriz, both out of Brooklyn. Like fellow southern transplants Bambara, Catcher carries a dark gothic energy embodied most of all by frontman and vocalist Austin Eichler, who winds frantically between his five bandmates like a man possessed. With a long, pained drawl and a penchant for black suits, he very much strikes the figure of a Tender Prey-era Nick Cave, and the presence of a demented violin feels quite inspired by Warren Ellis’ contributions to the Bad Seeds. Gruesome and tactile, the band’s songs conjure images of “strap-leather skin” and flies infesting a man’s head driving him mad; uncomfortably-specific touchstones that really emphasize the desperate, lo-fi sonics.
Model/Actriz, by contrast, pushes things in an electronically-influenced direction: more modern-sounding but no less forceful. Frontman Cole Haden’s face is adorned with glitter that accentuates a piercing stare, something many audience members experience with a degree of closeness that they may not have anticipated as it becomes clear that every pass is matched with rigid, intense choreography. Haden lies prostrate on the subwoofer in front of the stage and stares unflinchingly into the eyes in the front row, and at one point wraps his head in a jumper and comes out into the middle of the floor, using the mic stand as a cane, circumnavigating the room in a laborious performance. Much of the set is drawn from unreleased material; the band’s extant discography is limited but characterized by guitar and bass tones warped nearly beyond recognition through a host of pedals, and explosive choruses typically sandwiched by more minimalist verses.
While each of these acts could headline in their own right, it’s Liily that has the honor this evening, and they’ve come bearing a set featuring a large slice of TV or Not TV, plus a few glimpses into the future. Their performance, in its own way, functions as a window into their development as artists. Beginning with mid-period single ‘Wash’, it’s a reminder that Liily began, with EP I Can Fool Anybody in this Town, as a much more guitar-forward band. Songs like ‘Toro’ and ‘The Weather’ were thrilling but one could imagine hearing them on a radio station alongside genre stalwarts like Foals; it’s hard to say that much of TV has that kind of mass appeal, though a more particular draw it carries in spades with a shadowy, churning menace underscoring the majority of its tracks.
In the jump from their first major release to the second, it’s arguable that the rhythm section – bassist Charlie Anastasis and drummer Maxx Morando – have been given a wholly transformed role. It’s their interplay that carves out, often with the tonality of massive industrial machinery, the gigantic canyons in which the rest of the album lives. Anastasis seems like he’s in a constant unstated contest with vocalist Dylan Nash to see who can move more onstage, Nash swinging his fists through the air while Anastasis rarely has two feet on the ground, and when he does he’s bowed low towards his pedal board, long hair falling down past his face if it’s given a moment to stay still at all. All this is not to say that guitarist Sam de la Torre has been relegated to the wayside; far from it, in fact. It’s his stingers that sell the off-kilter pacing of songs like ‘Man Listening to Disc’, and he’s firmly in command on both the title track of the record and ‘Monkey’, by far its poppiest moments.
Nash’s voice is the centerpiece that ties the whole body of work together. He demonstrates incredible range across TV or Not TV, often with raspy yelps like on ‘Man Listening to Disc’, but cuts like ‘Mr. Speaker Gets the Word’ and ‘The Suit that Sold Itself’ watch him relax into an icy, detached recitation that is all the more haunting as the songs build back to crescendo around it as if he were the harbinger of a coming storm. But often he’s the storm itself; Nash is excellent at playing the manic narrator, pairing well with his often-opaque lyrics – a combo that calls back to a number of the idiosyncratic POV characters from one of the best post-punk albums of 2021, Wasteland by LICE, out of Bristol in England.
But while there are certainly points of comparison, the beauty of Liily’s full-length debut – and the reason it was my personal favorite release of 2021 – lies in the sheer inventiveness that the young west-coasters exhibit from the first note of the record to the last. They cover a great deal of it throughout the night, but there’s yet more to discover on the album, like the drum machine-driven ‘Odds Are It’s Blue’ or the shoegazey ‘Anvil’. And with a few unreleased tracks peppered into the setlist throughout the night in Boston, it’s safe to say the band are sitting on another release in the not-too-distant future that’s likely to find them adding even more hats to their ever-expanding haberdashery.
Review and photos by Collin Heroux
