Question: Who did critics compare bands to before Arcade Fire made their jobs so much easier? It’s a rhetorical question that’s dancing especially close to the tip of my tongue right now seeing as that’s the most obvious comparison following (haunting?) both bands that played Union Hall on Saturday night. That caveat out of the way, it’s probably also worth noting that it was one hell of a show.

Port O’Brien took the stage first (second actually, I had arrived too late to see Loxsley play unfortunately) and within about 90 seconds had dissolved any doubts about them I may have fostered from a few cursory listens of their latest album All We Could Do Was Sing. It’s not a bad album, I just found the instrumentation and - in particular - the unnecessary layers of vocals too thick and distracting to wade through; which is a shame, because their live show projected a compelling hunger and spare, economic songwriting that was just buried or altogether missing from the album.

It’s this same muscular beauty, delicate thrashing - or whatever other combo of oxymorons you want to string together - that most immediately recalls the finest elements of the Arcade Fire’s transcendent live shows as well, and lead singer/guitarist Van Pierszalowski even bears a sort of eerie resemblance to Win Butler, both in the way he coaxes at and croons his vocals and also how he hulks over the microphone and gleefully sways the acoustic guitar as though her were doing the Tango with a rag doll.

You may think all this is just to set up some diatribe about how Bodies of Water (also in the above slideshow) disappointed me and provoked the opposite reaction as Port O’Brien. Not true at all. While Port O’Brien had the surprise element working in their favor, I had already committed Bodies of Water’s outstanding new album A Certain Feeling pretty much to memory after a month of constant spins. Which is to say, the bar was set pretty high.

The songs on A Certain Feeling succeed most compellingly in their ability to convey a sense of danger, mystery, and urgency amidst the disarmingly beautiful wall of vocals. Seeing these songs come to life on Saturday was revelatory, as the band pushed forward at precisely the right moments and dramatically held back at others in a way that let the songs take on a life of their own. The danger intensified, the mysteries became more mysterious, and suddenly I stopped thinking Arcade Fire and started thinking Bodies of fucking Water!

So by the end of the set, I had come up with another band with which to compare Bodies of Water: the B-52s. It was there in their doo-wop harmonies, jittering forth in their krautrock vamps, popping out of playful rhythm changes, and lurking amidst the creepiness that undermined every melody. And it was awesome. See, not every comparison has to be to Arcade Fire….

Listen:
Bodies of Water - “Water Here”
Port O’Brien - “I Woke Up Today”

Visit the bands on MySpace: Bodies of Water / Port O’Brien

*Above slideshow created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.