Metronomy at Brooklyn Steel
Photo by Greg Cristman

Metronomy played Brooklyn Steel with Gordi (pics, review)

UK band Metronomy kicked off a very short U.S. tour on Monday night at NYC’s Brooklyn Steel. The band didn’t tour very much for last year’s Summer 08 album (didn’t cross the pond at all) so this was the first chance we’ve had to hear those songs live, and they kicked off Monday’s show with three songs from the record. Metronomy are atypical of most electronic-leaning groups in that they almost always come off better live than on record, and aren’t afraid to take songs in new directions. Summer 08 tracks like “Miami Logic” and “Old Skool” definitely improved in the live setting, and songs from their rock-oriented Love Letters album became more electronic. Many of the songs flowed into each other, making for seamless mini-sets.

Metronomy also don’t rely on laptops or sequencers, which definitely came in handy on “The Look” when Michael Lovett’s analog synthesizer went out of tune. “We’re just going to keep playing this one bit till we’ve got this sorted,” frontman Joseph Mount told the crowd as the band rode the song’s sashaying organ groove. “Hope you don’t mind.” It being maybe the band’s most popular song, nobody seemed to mind getting more of it and when Oscar Cash’s synth solo finally kicked in it was a little more awesome than it might’ve been otherwise.

Brooklyn Steel also got “The Bay” and “Everything Goes My Way” from The English Riveria, the latter (their encore) had Joseph Mount switching places with drummer Anna Prior so she could sing lead. There wasn’t quite enough of Nights Out for me (they played “Heart Rate Rapid” and “On Motorways”) but with five albums, choices become tougher.

Opening the night was Australian artist Gordi whose debut album Resevoir recently came out via Jagjaguwar. There’s a little Bon Iver-style vocoder-ing in her lush sound, which was not so much to my taste. Pictures from her set and the whole night are in the gallery above.

Metronomy head to San Francisco’s Independent on November 15 and Los Angeles’ The Regent on November 16, and that’s it for their tour. They did say they hoped to be back soon.


photos by Greg Cristman