New Song is so much more than the pulsing disco anthem that gets the entire Royal Festival Hall audience out of their seats. The track, which compares the beginning of a relationship with the rush of writing (or hearing) a new song, can easily be seen as a reflection on Warpaint’s career. Over the course of four stunning albums and almost 20 years, the Los Angeles quartet have always been enraptured by the new, constantly redefining their sound from one LP to the next.
That evolution — from the expansive, multifaceted explorations of 2010’s The Fool to the finesse of last year’s Radiate Like This — is on full display tonight. So is the four members’ obvious joy. Even after two decades, they clearly still get a thrill out of playing together and sharing that experience with an audience. So, even something as focused as New Song is bookended by beautiful ambient vocals and morphs into the swampy Disco//Very by way of a raging instrumental that has guitarist/singer Theresa Wayman and bassist/singer Jenny Lee Lindberg head banging upstage.
Things begin far more quietly. Warpaint start their Meltdown Festival show with the ethereal classic Stars, as (backed by suitably moody lighting) Wayman and barefoot singer/guitarist Emily Kokal immediately showcase the dreamy vocal harmonies synonymous with the band. Champion, from the other end of their catalogue, gradually builds on the mood. It begins slowly, quietly, with all four members (including drummer Stella Mozgawa) singing together, before developing into something altogether fuller, faster, and louder.
Similarly, the instrumental Intro sounds altogether more epic, with all three guitarists jamming (and Lindberg dancing) exuberantly, before evolving (as it does on their self-titled album) into an elegant Keep It Healthy. The appropriately slinky Hips, complete with Calypso rhythms and Kokal swaying at the microphone, showcases Warpaint’s latest evolution. Bees goes all the way back to the beginning — cue layered vocals, sudden time changes, psychedelic guitars, polyrhythmic drumming, and an almost cataclysmic instrumental bit — before a transcendent Hard To Tell You brings us right back to the present.
Another one that starts quietly but builds and builds and builds, it somehow manages to sound both weightless and substantial, thanks to the gauzy vocal harmonies, driving bassline, and Kokal pushing her voice harder than at any other point tonight. She responds to the understandably enthusiastic audience response with a modest thumbs up before Wayman puts down her own guitar, grabs a microphone from its stand, and takes over lead vocal duties. Moving around the stage, she totally owns the heady Love Is To Die, which culminates in another big, fun jam and associated dancing with abandon (both on stage and off).
The hazy Undertow, a relatively understated moment from their debut that sneaks up on you to become a firm favourite, repeats that magic on stage and Warpaint know it, placing the relative dreamscape right alongside The Fool’s most urgent, uncompromising track: Krimson. Shoegaze at its most belligerent, and even unapologetically shouty at times, it’s the perfect contrast to an inspired cover of I’m So Tired. Relatively restrained, although not as much as Fugazi’s, it’s dominated by Lindberg on the groove and lead vocal fronts, although Wayman steps out of the shadows to reel off an incendiary guitar solo.
New Song and Disco//Very wrap the main set with force before the encore resets with the gentle, hypnotic Whiteout and R&B folk of Send Nudes (so low key that the bass player sits down for its duration and Mozgawa plays with all the subtlety of a jazzer). But they’re just a warm-up for Beetles. Far more pronounced than on the debut album, sweet vocals over a drone alternate with frenzied instrumental sections that seem designed to end the show on a feverish high. But just as the rest of the band appear to be preparing to leave the Royal Festival Hall stage, Lindberg seems to instigate one more song. So it’s the towering Elephants — tightly wound guitar riffs, pounding drums, indistinguishable vocals — that ends Warpaint’s Meltdown Festival performance on a thrilling, thunderous high.
Meltdown Festival: Warpaint
Queen Elizabeth Hall, London
12th June 2023
Photo: Victor Frankowski
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 