Get ready to ramble: 21 shows you need to see before September

Music Features

Out: Never mind the rapture, here's Pretty & Nice

Without Judgment

By MICHAEL MAROTTA | May 26, 2011

GETTING IT DONE Pretty & Nice didn’t ascend, but they did make everyone dance like idiots.

There's a sense of calculated jubilation in Pretty & Nice's frantic brand of caffeinated pop, one that's a bit paranoid, a bit euphoric, and always on the verge of spinning out of control. So on a night when the promise of rapture failed to materialize, a rock band to lose your fucking mind to was a necessary respite from the bland hysteria of so-called Judgment Day.

Roughly four hours after no one was saved on this Saturday, May 21, Pretty & Nice hit the sonic panic button during Age Rings' double-album release show at the Middle East, tucked between a noisy-but-collected set from openers You Can Be a Wesley and the veteran, introspective post-rock of Taxpayer. It was a fitting soundtrack to the day: a dizzying spin of art-rock fervor that allowed everyone to dance around like an idiot.

The performance was also a celebration for a band getting shit done. Pretty & Nice just wrapped up a 13-date May tour with Jukebox the Ghost and Bozmo that ran as far west as St. Louis and also used Kickstarter to raise $4500 to press 2008 album Get Young on white vinyl. Getting their Hardly Art/Sub Pop release on wax was imperative. "None of us collect or own CDs at this point," says singer/guitarist Holden Lewis.

Pretty & Nice also just released the Fantastic Artifact seven-inch as a sort of teaser before a new album drops later in the year. The two-track effort, with "Yonkers" (not a Tyler, the Creator cover) and "It's Gonna Get Better" (which is a cover of the 1983 Genesis song), is off Black Bell Records, the Brooklyn label owned by Passion Pit's Ayad Al Adhamy. Black Bell has been showing Boston love lately, issuing the new Girlfriends seven-inch, Cave Kids, and prepping the debut from Secret Music, a NYC-based electro-pop project featuring Chase Nichol of Yes Giantess.

"We've known Ayad since he was here with Passion Pit," says Lewis. "He proposed doing the seven-inch, and now we get to stay at his Brooklyn apartment." Boston and NYC working together — now that's apocalyptic.

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Topics: Music Features , Middle East, Music, Pretty & Nice, More

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