Maps & Atlases just released a new album, their first full-length called Perch Patchwork recently and they are out hitting the road in support of the album and I had the pleasure of seeing them along with a very enthusiastic crowd last weekend at The Loft. I have seen these guys several times before and each time I love it, but this was the first ‘headlining’ show I had seen from them and consequently I think it is the only show of theirs I’ve been to where the audience seemed to a. know who they are and b. be extremely into them. Granted, with some of their hypertechnical chaos they usually will win over any crowd as an opener, but everyone here knew all the lyrics and sang along with everything, it was great to see for these guys I have been a fan of for quite some time.
There were a few notable openers at this show, and first up was Seattle’s The Globes. They played a brand of kind of updated moody alternative rock a la Sunny Day Real Estate melded with some lo-fi angular riffs a la Pavement and the ilk. They had some really good songs and I enjoyed their set, they put some real emotion into it and actually played a pretty long set by opener standards. They offset hooky sections with lo-fi off beat sections of songs and it all worked pretty well together. Although it did feel a little derivative at times, they have a good base of material they can certainly build with and I would like to see more from these guys going forward.
Up next was very buzzed about and mysterious band Cults, who have a current minor underground hit with “Go Outside”, which they played here and it was definitely the highlight of their set for me. Generally, the songs were quite short and heavilyl based in kind of 60s blues/swing kinds of tunes (an updated throw back, they don’t go for the whole nine like bands like She & Him, but they have that modern/retro thing going). They are simple and innocent sounding songs that have nice beats to them and don’t really have many twists and turns, but rest rather more on the execution and emotion of the songs. While their set really had some great moments, they didn’t quite carry the show to greatness for me. They have some great songs and they are certainly very fresh, and with more seasoning they will get the hang of it, but the songs kind of came and went very quickly and they didn’t have quite the staying power you would hope. But I liked the promise I heard here so looking forward to more from them as well.
Finally, the greatness of Maps & Atlases hit the stage. Having seen them several times before and always having left pretty pleased with their set, I was looking forward to this, although I have to admit with the more subdued tones of their new full-length (for which I hope to have a review up here shortly) I wasn’t quite as hyped for this as I normally would have been. Basically their first EP was this chaotic progressive rock blitzkrieg that really translated into a great live set, and subsequently with their second EP and now their first LP they have kind of scaled back their sound to a more subtle type of song. It is great because the band is really hitting some great strides here, but it is also a departure from some of those songs they used to tear through from the first EP. In reality, it isn’t bad but it just leads to a bit of a different experience than prior Maps & Atlases shows, but they hit on the songs from the album and they were great stuff.
As I said at the top, everyone in the crowd was super into this and was singing along with everything and thunderous cheers broke out after almost all the songs. The new songs are more lyric-friendly and Davison has done a great job of creating a batch of songs that are sneaky and subtle in their complexity. Complexity was always the band’s hallmark, but now it has just taken on a more subtle form. The crowd did react very strongly to the appearance of “Everyplace Is A House”, one of the chaotic hypertechnical songs from the first EP. “Daily News” also got a huge roar and was probably the highlight of the night for me, as they absolutely killed that song. From the new album all of the songs came off really well, especially “Solid Ground”; “Living Decorations” also was fantastic.
They finished their regular set with “Artichokes” and then took to The Loft’s expansive patio overlooking the Dallas skyline for an acoustic set where they played several songs from the new album that actually went extremely well acoustic. I’m not sure I would have ever expected Maps & Atlases to play an acoustic post-show set, but they did, and it was great. “Israeli Caves” made an appearance and was phenomenal, but the highlight was probably “Pigeon”, which is a great song on the record, but hearing it on a pure acoustic on The Loft’s patio was just great.
Check out all of our photos from this show below.
Maps & Atlases – Solid Ground – From Perch Patchwork (Amazon | iTunes)
Cults – Go Outside – From Cults 7″
The Globes – Stay Awake – From Sinter Songs
