By: Travis Even
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| Le Loup publicity photo |
After building a solid buzz from their South-by-Southwest performance, I anxiously waited to see how Le Loup had grown from the solo recordings of Sam Simkoff to a seven-piece orchestra. Over the last few months, I digested their debut album whose name, The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nation's Millennium General Assembly, was taken from the work of James Hampton. Born at the beginning of the 20th century, Hampton was a janitor who over the course of 14 years assembled a throne room in his garage out of aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, cardboard, mirrors and light bulbs. This album was made in a similar fashion with Simkoff fusing tracks onto tracks until a beautiful, lyrically apocalyptic album emerged. What arrived on Saturday night was the cathartic release of those pent up aggressions.
Formed from responses to Washington DC's Craigslist postings, the band deftly navigated between loud and soft as easily as they switched between instruments. While these dynamic shifts could have been considered clichéd, Le Loup avoided this fate by playing with a passion that's unfortunately absent in so many bands. When all seven voices united in singing “this world is made for ending,” it was not despair in their throats, but rather hope for a new beginning.
The redheaded Simkoff danced like an angry toddler, with his hands switching between plucking banjo lines and tickling the keys of a synchronized two-man keyboard. The rest of the band joined the melee with thunderous snare hits, harmonized three-guitar atmospherics, and even French horn, whose diminutive player’s bellowing occasionally caused her to lose balance. The seven individuals pulsed as single organism careening through the darkened, often biblical lyrics with a resolve commonly reserved for more seasoned bands. While their sound finds similarities in such diverse acts as the Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, the Books and Godspeed You Black Emperor, Le Loup defies expectations and are already vying for a slot in my best new bands list. While their current album is enjoyable, it is merely a taste of what this band is capable of creating.
Location Info:
7th Street Entry
Artist Info: Le Loup
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