Monday night atop the Mountain, Seattle band Barcelona immersed the grooving audience in melodic songs of old and new. The trio released the final component to their three part EP series, The Melodrama, in March, revealing yet another side to their multifaceted musical style of reverb-saturated pop. Throughout the night, band told tales of love and loss through catchy beats that captivated the crowd. Californian indie popsters The Young Wild commenced the night with tracks off their EP, For Now Not Forever, released earlier this month, reeking of cool and building anticipation of the hours to follow.
The Young Wild are, well, young and slightly wild, but definitely smile-inducing with their sunny disposition, cooperative chemistry and lyricized contentment. Admirably, an encompassing group energy resonates throughout the dynamic of the quintet quite successfully, as they collaborate to preform upbeat tunes featuring radical riffs and pleasant repetition, all heavily supported by Brandon Zedaker on percussion. Wrapping up their set, The Young Wild played the anthem “Moment Goes,” expressed their adoration of Austin as well as their amaranthine gratitude, and stepped off the stage, only to mingle with attendees for the remainder of the evening.
Devoid of any hesitation, Barcelona seized the stage. Powerful vocals and driving guitar triumphantly scaled the entirety of the venue on the hunt for every last drop of attention. Their recent singles, chockfull of synthesizer and heart-searchingly analytical lyrics, hybridized smoothly with tracks off their other two full-length albums, piano-rich tracks of a mellower nature, creating an organic ebb and flow that infiltrated the atmosphere and permeated itself into our minds, lending the room to a more malleable state as they droned on into the night. Between the blatant devotion Barcelona has in relation not only to each other and the production of their music, but also to those tuned in to it, it was near impossible to stay grounded and resist slipping into a hazy void where Brian Fennell shares his discoveries on the nature of love as he strums away.
The harmonious partnership between these two bands is much appreciated, as they are acutely complimentary of one another. Barcelona laid out some serious stuff up there on the stage of Holy Mountain, but only after we as an audience had been given a blast of a pep talk by The Young Wild. Together, The Young Wild and Barcelona’s alliance prevailed in the fight for our hearts.
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