Photos by Ethan Feuer

With the potential exception of STATS, it’s almost impossible to tack genres onto any of the performances at the Bowery Ballroom on January 30. Wonderfully consonant despite their complete disregard for musical convention, each act built on the next until Buke and Gase (effusive Arone Dyer and the stoic, focused Aron Sanchez) finally took the stage to an ecstatic full house. Even in the middle of a grueling tour, the band’s enthusiasm for the venue and the home crowd was obvious. When Dyer came out beaming with her beloved Buke, it was hard not to follow suit.

Buke and Gase, after minimal introductions, played a show of technical mastery, riveting enthusiasm, and punchy, repetitive riffs and jags. Their vocals and instrumentation were a jet accelerating into a series of hairpin turns, warped by distortion and ring mods. It was hard to look away.

The opening acts deserve special mention as well. If you’re looking for extended-play, technically spotless, slightly math-infused metal, you should look no further than STATS. Ahleuchatistas, meanwhile, played a set in which songs were not so much discrete objects but constructed, developable geometries bleeding endlessly into one another. Their melodies appeared and vanished hauntingly at a moment’s notice. In terms of stage presence, guitarist Shane Perlowin and drummer Ryan Oslance could hardly be more different, with the former a hair’s breadth from shoegaze and the latter somewhere between “spectacular freak-out” and “situationist artform.” Don’t miss them.

Buke and Gase

Ahleuchatistas

STATS