Live: Those Darlins Shake Things Up At The Bell House

Sarah Luisa Garay

Better than: Minding your ps and qs.

The Tennessee country-punk foursome Those Darlins is quite darling, but they aren't entirely prim and proper; on Friday at the Bell House, they hollered anthems of lust from their aptly titled second album Screws Get Loose (Oh Wow Dang). Lead singer Jessie Darlin—clad in her signature gold-sequined leotard—was a pistol-like presence all night, but she really had fun with the Loose standout "Mystic Mind," a song that's uncharacteristically psychedelic both sonically (the riffs are straight out of a '60s Western) and lyrically (the opening of the third eye, etc.).

All four members—Jessi, Kelley, and Nikki Darlin, as well as new drummer (and lone dude) Linwood Regensburg —contribute vocal duties to the group's harmonic onslaught, with Regensburg shining in particular during his solo on the shamelessly poppy "Let U Down." The girls had a laugh with "Be Your Bro," a girl-power anthem about just wanting to be friends with a boy who wants to take things further. Sex is also put on the back burner in the hilarious "Fatty Needs A Fix," which is about another important kind of hunger—for dinner to be made by the ladies' lover. Kelley Darlin turned on the charm for "Boy," which recalls the male specimens the ladies encounter while on tour. On that song, Kelley helplessly croons, "Hold me. Never let me go." It'd be hard to.

Queens garage-punkers the Beets brought out quite the contingent for their opening slot—not too surprising, since they've been playing around the New York City DIY scene for quite some time now. Having adorned the stage with a homemade blanket reading "Welcome to the land of freedom of the beets," the band got the crowd going with raucous (relative) oldies like "What Did I Do" and a few bits from their upcoming album Let The Poison Out (Hardly Art).

Critical bias: Jessie Darlin and I practically have the same haircut.

Overheard: "So, they're named The Beets. And the guy was dressed like Doug's sister, right?"

Random notebook dump: Get sequined leotard. Preferably gold.

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