Live Review: Iceage, Dirty Beaches at D.C.’s Black Cat Backstage (7/24)

Stoic rage reigned supreme last night. Two separate bands, both wearing black clothes and blank stares, played loud, abrasive, nauseating music, angrily ripping the air to shreds with little discretion. It was loud, jarring, incomprehensible, and before we knew it, it was all over. Dirty Beaches and Iceage played for a combined 50 minutes, packing a punch twice the size of the shows space and time. Like a flash nightmare, the two bands carried their wrath onto the Cats small backstage, dropped it all out onto the floor, then kicked at it until it was a bloody mess.

Dirty Beaches, the solo project of Taiwanese-born Canadian-raised lo-fi songwriter Alex Zhang Hungtai, was the first set I caught (the bill was actually four acts, but for a Tuesday night I had to get real). With a wide net that... [via Consequence Of Sound]