Pins + Beverly Rip It Up At Mercury Lounge

There was an early evening show at one of Manhattan’s finest small venues by the name of Mercury Lounge composed of pure fiery femme fatale fun, headlined by Manchester’s coolest recent import PINS and supported by Brooklyn’s own Beverly.

Opening the show was the one-woman show known as Kyoko, the multi-instrumentalist support for the headliner PINS. Her full name is Kyoko Swan and she created expansive sound constructs, often starting her songs with a simple drum snaps creating the beat, strumming out an echoing guitar twist, and layering her vocals in a half new age and half new wave sound, like Enya meeting Brian Eno.

Kyoko

Next was Beverly, who certainly prove themselves to be a band to watch out for and jam to till your feet fall off from bopping about like a Tigger on crack. There is no need to call front-woman/guitarist Drew Citron a blonde bombshell knockout as she is clearly a full-on ICBM set to annihilate your whole world, and as a former member of Crystal Stilts, Vivian Girls, and Dum Dum Girls – she clearly holds the cards of some seriously attractive rock n’ roll shimmy shake along with her partner in crime bassist/guitarist Scott Rosenthal and some very cool supporting cats. I just picked up their premiere LP Careers from last year on one of my favorite labels Kanine Records, and I highly suggest rocking out to them soon.

Beverly

Commanding the night was PINS, gifting us across the pond again and getting the party to truly light off. The all-female foursome does have a distinct sound that can draw many comparisons, most prevalent in my mind would be a punky Go-Gos, a quirkier Dum Dum Girls, or even a wackier riot grrrl band like Sleater-Kinney that also like to party hearty, all, of course, with a distinctly more British flavor. Apart from the cool-girl struts and hardcore guitar-riffing, they are an insanely catchy group, and just a plain blast to see live. From lots of getting into the audience to build up fervor, to getting all of the girls in the audience to jump up on stage to dance away with the group as they killed their hit “Girls Like Us” with equal parts Blondie and Savages power. They even mixed in a bit of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” towards the end, so they know how to get an audience enthused.

The main power definitely lies within the duo-ship of the ultra-too cool for school singer/guitarist Faith Holgate and the spit-fire party-bomb guitarist Lois McDonald, but the whole group is just a down-right blast. Their two albums 2003’s Wild Nights and the recent classic Girls Like Us are both out on another of my favorite labels Bella Union and do yourself a favor and let them take you to the limit as well.