Horsegirl at Market Hotel (photo by Brianna DiGioia)
Tuesday 3/22 marked the NYC debut for Horsegirl, an indie rock trio out of Chicago. Market Hotel was packed with a welcoming and adoring crowd, whose energy built throughout a night of Midwest meets East Coast rock. The night began with Brooklyn locals S.C.A.B. (an anagram of band members’ names: Sean, Cory, Alec, and Brandon) for some pop tinged post punk. A perfect balance of pop melodies with pedal laden edge, this band got people moving, and quickly. Next up were Hotline TNT, an indie rock outfit bringing Minneapolis volume to Market Hotel.
Horsegirl looked and felt immediately at home in Brooklyn, as Nora Cheng, Penelope Lowenstein, and Gigi Reece took their places on the stage. An impressive show from the first note, this band plays off one another expertly, while never being too polished. Vocally interweaving, Cheng and Lowenstein create a soundscape that is instantly captivating, and Reece’s drums tie it creatively and tightly together. Shoegazey, scuzzy, textural, post punk noisy: all the right stuff.
With a sound that owes a lot to its six string bass, Horsegirl’s catchy riffs got an enraptured crowd dancing and singing along from the get go. You can tell that this band not only listens to one another, they get exactly what they’re going for. The only thing that we could have asked for was that their set had been even longer. Horsegirl, please come back to New York. And stay a while.
Horsegirl’s first full length record, Versions of Modern Performance, comes out June 3rd via Matador Records.
Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Brianna DiGioia)
S.C.A.B.
HOTLINE TNT
HORSEGIRL
