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i’m so glad i overcame the sloth that was threatening to sink my thursday evening. instead of reading comic books and watching the latest top chef, i hopped in the car and made my way out at the last minute to see buried beds at the tin angel last night. i’ve seen them a number of times now and they never cease to amaze me.

when i found out the full band was playing i have to admit that i was mildly curious to see if they could even fit in the venue. while the tin angel is a great place to see acoustic acts, the stage is ideally suited to duos and solo players. well, they managed to get six members of the entire band (7 members tonight including lap steel/guitar) on the tiny tin angel stage, music stands, keyboard stand, lap steel stand and all. that in itself was probably worth the price of admission.

i think i smiled throughout their entire set. one of the things that can ruin bands like buried beds is self-indulgence but they never fall into that trap. what makes them so good (and so much better than bands of their ilk) is that the songs are so perfectly arranged that there is not even one extraneous note. in each song they know what the most important thing they’re trying to say is, and most importantly, they know how to say it. even when they’re experimenting with certain things dynamically (it was as noisy of a set that i’ve seen from them, which is a totally relative term now that i think about it), it always serves the purpose of the song.

the lap steel, which i’d never seen them with before, added another layer of strings to their existing orchestral sound. it was very interesting at times to hear the lap steel, two violins and slide guitar at the same time. you hear one and it’s a forlorn and lonely instrument. you hear them all at once along with the voices of eliza hardy & brandon beaver and it’s totally brilliant; it’s the sound of desperation viewed grandly. (buried beds play at bryn mawr college tonight, march 24)