There is something so humanly engaging about watching someone erratically pace a stage, sweating profusely, jugular pumping, fry-screaming into an equally wired crowd. While unfamiliar in everyday life, it feels raw, almost primal, tied to evolution and the human experience itself. That is exactly what Zack Borzone, lead singer of up-and-coming experimental noise band YHWH Nailgun, accomplished on Thursday night in the dimly lit back room of Cats Cradle. Drummer Sam Pickard contributed to the feeling, beating out polyrhythms, adding to the uncomfortable allure of Borzone, while electronic musician Jack Tobias layered harsh, otherworldly timbres over the room and guitarist Saguiv Rosenstock did his best to riff and make sense of it all.
Taking a step back, I arrived early, at 7 pm sharp and eager for a show. To my surprise, all of YHWH was sitting outside on a bench, just talking. Candidly, I didn’t recognize them; they could have passed for any group of friends killing time before a show. I only realized who they were when they started signing copies of 45 Pounds, their debut studio album. The band was very sweet with the other early fans, pulling them into little conversations and signing things when asked. They disappeared backstage around 7:30.
The atmosphere was perfect for the night. The cloudy grey weather and near-full moon mixed with the burnt orange lighting in the dark room felt akin to an A24 film; the Phoebe Bridgers performance in I Saw the TV Glow shot at The Saint in New Jersey comes to mind.
Opener Samba Jean-Baptiste started right on time, casually walking onto the stage with nothing but his white electric guitar. His performance was raw: no backing track, no autotune, just him and the guitar. His music sounds quite different in this format, but it made sense, highlighting his talent unfiltered at its most basic, and I came away appreciating a different side of him. Pitchfork described his music as something that “dwells in the semi-sublime state of being bored and stoned,” and that captured my listening experience. For the first twenty minutes or so, I felt locked in an intimate room, brought into a world where it was just Baptiste singing to me the way a friend would. By the last few songs, though, it dragged a bit, and I think incorporating percussion toward the end of his set would have bolstered it greatly. If you like off-kilter R&B or artists like Steve Lacy or EXUM, I think you’d get a lot out of Baptiste.
After he left the stage, YHWH Nailgun arrived and began playing, almost ignoring the crowd. In contrast to how Baptiste made me feel, their presence left me starkly separate, especially next to fans who, I learned later, many of whom were seeing the group for the third time. “Cult following” gets thrown around a lot these days, but Nailgun clearly has that kind of appeal. Sonically, the band riffs off mechanical, inhuman sounds over unorthodox rhythms and has mastered finding unique timbres. This is matched with disorienting lyricism delivered in classic punk/metal yelling, seemingly devoted mostly to religious imagery on their latest release, Magazine, which the tour supports.
What I found most interesting was the intervals at which the explosive energy arrived. You could never feel safe that a track would stay calm for long, and Borzone’s anger and emotion would come as fast as it left. He clearly loves performing, too, with a profound smirk stretching across his face between most tracks.
Electronic music is typically thought of as the most innovative sound, but YHWH Nailgun carves a new lane within older rock traditions: an avant-garde offshoot of rock that folds in all kinds of weird textures and sounds. Innovation doesn’t come in one direction. Often in music discussion, what gets attention is obvious innovation: deliberate, unignorable sounds that give a song its identity. YHWH’s is subtler. From the weird humming and almost missable wet textures on “Ballerina” to the slight gap before where you’d expect the beat to land on “Stillness Blues,” the band doesn’t let go of your attention for a second. This is further bolstered by the brevity of their tracks, most only about a minute, which is almost to a fault, as I wished most songs went on longer.
Between Baptiste’s intimacy and Nailgun’s distance, the night showed two very different ways of commanding a room. I left the cats cradle still an outsider, but I’d love to see YHWH Nailgun again, and next time I’d like to be part of the cult instead of watching from the edge.
