By Samir MathurContributing writer
Staff page
I’ll be honest: it’s hard for me to write objectively about Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. When I went to college, the band would come to town fairly regularly and I’d never miss them. When they came back to Florida in April, I drove up to Tallahassee to catch them again. And I’m super excited about seeing them next week at the Social.
Their latest album ‘The Brutalist Bricks’ condenses everything that is great about the band into about 45 awesome minutes. Beginning with a kick in the shins (‘The Mighty Sparrow’) and ending with the apocalyptic stomp of ‘Last Days’, it leaves you wanting more. As ever, there are at least four songs on the album that feel like, with the correct push, could be properly huge: how great would it be to hear ‘Bottled in Cork’, another in Leo’s canon of travelogues, on the radio instead of ‘Use Somebody’ for the millionth time? Plus, the band’s back catalogue isn’t too shabby either – they tend to play a lot of the short and catchy tunes from their excellent album ‘Shake the Sheets’, plus the more complex faves off ‘Living with the Living’ and ‘Hearts of Oak’, and some from even further back. For the best part of a decade, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists have been making like the Rollins Band and Do(ing) It.
Live, they’re a machine. The entire band brings incredible energy to every performance, with each set feeling much shorter than it actually is, because they plough through loads and loads of songs really quickly. Every time I’ve seen them, Ted has worn a long-sleeved shirt, which I’ve always found weird.
Opening are fellow New Jerseyites Screaming Females. They put out an album called ‘Castle Talk’ recently and they are also terrific. Frontwoman Marissa Paternoster is a really compelling presence, not unlike Jack White, wailing and playing complicated and interesting guitar parts. They’re one of those lesser-known bands that I wish would just be a little better-known, so make sure you get there in time to see them.
Ted Leo and the Pharmacists play the Social next Wednesday (10/13) with Screaming Females.
Tickets are $15, available online or at Park Ave CDs.