If It's Too Loud...

The Beths Photo by Ken Sears The Beths are one of our favorite and most consistent bands we've discovered while doing If It's Too Loud... Every album they've released since 2018's Future Me Hates Me has been stellar, and filled with killer song after killer song. Every time they come around, they're on a bigger stage than the time before, and they truly deserve all the attention they've been getting. This week they played their first ever Providence, RI show, and brought along fellow New Zealanders Phoebe Rings. The first time I saw The Beths was back when they played Atwood's Tavern in Cambridge. Just to show how far they've come since then, that stage wasn't much bigger than the rug singer/guitarist Elizabeth Stokes stood on at Fete Music Hall. What's best about The Beths' success is that they're still the same band. While their sound has evolved over the past eight years, you could take any song from this year's Straight Line Was a...

Looking back, it's become a tradition for me to go out on New Year's Eve Eve instead of New Year's Eve. Things typically get out earlier, they're cheaper, people are less drunk, and if you're going out on December 30, it's because you want to be there. When Deer Tick announced a hometown show at Fete Music Hall on NYE, I wanted to go, especially since it was the return of Deervana, which is them playing Nirvana covers. That night didn't work out for me, but after it sold out they announced a December 30 show, which I jumped at. Deer Tick opened the show as themselves, which was the opposite of what I expected. I love seeing bands playing hometown shows, and while all of New England can be considered Deer Tick country, there's just something special about seeing them in Providence. Not really playing as part of a tour or to promote an album, Deer Tick played an incredibly loose set that spanned their career and included some requests from fans of the band...

Photo by Alexa Viscius I've been a fan of Squirrel Flower since first hearing "Red Shoulder" back in 2019, and I've been trying to see her live since then. Obviously a global pandemic made that quite difficult for a long time, but it seems like she's played the Boston area a bunch of times, but it just has never quite worked out for me. Once she announced a solo tour with Horse Jumper of Love was coming to Providence, and it worked out for my schedule, I knew I had to make it. NOVA ONE getting added as local support ended up being a huge bonus for me. NOVA ONE opened the evening with a set consisting of mostly new songs from their upcoming album due out on March 10. Roz Raskin made a comment that they were a bit nervous since it was new songs, but there was no reason to be. Breaking the evening's theme of solo performances (Raskin was joined by a second guitarist), songs like "crying" and "dangerous" held up with more well known ones. Seein...

Photo via Facebook The Melvins are always an interesting band. They tend to release anywhere from 1-3 albums per year, with varying results. Some are absolute classics, while others are... interesting. But their live shows are always a must see. I had missed them earlier this year on the Savage Imperial Death March Tour with Napalm Death and Melt Banana. Luckily for me, they swung through New England again and hit Providence. A Melvins show can be quite the challenge for a casual fan. The band open up with an instrumental intro with very minimal bass, drums, and occasional guitar that seemed to last roughly three hours. (Ok, it was probably ten minutes, but that's still a pretty long time.) The crowd was rewarded heavily with a fan favorite set that brushed the majority of the band's career. Despite having just released a new (and pretty great) album, Basses Loaded , The Melvins only played two songs off of it, "Hideous Woman" and "Take Me Out to the Ballga...