Review: Palehound at The Lodge Room, Los Angeles
FOR A TOUR FEATURING A PAINFUL, DEEPLY PERSONAL BREAKUP ALBUM - Palehound performed joyfully, the whole band smiling at each other and bouncing to the heavy rock rhythms as frontperson El Kempner poetically confessed about shattered love to the crowd of young indie queers and older emo dudes.
Eye On The Bat — Palehound’s latest record, released nearly a decade since Brooklyn-based Kempner began the project — traveled to the independent Lodge Room in Los Angeles with a band of other cool gay people (including Larz Brogan, one of Kempner’s main collaborators for the new album, throwing down on bass).
Fans squished at the front of the stage, intently headbanging while drummer Jamie Pompei ripped so hard, a cymbal flipped over, and guitarist Beck Zegans peppered the soundscape, sliding up the strings and singing sweet harmonies.
All the while, Kempner’s singer-songwriter nature holds the heartbeat of the stage: the gravel in their voice and the furrowing of their face emote every lyric — some emo, some silly, all brutally honest reflections of a broken, repairing self — as they effortlessly twinkle along on guitar.
Despite the subject matter, the band of friends made the performance a cathartic, effervescent one. Palehound invited the crowd into the communal dynamic, too, telling stories as they tuned between songs, mentioning small details like how they stayed at a waffle-themed hotel the previous night (Kempner clarified: the hotel simply had an attached waffle restaurant).
At least part of the audience was already in the band’s musical community. “This is for my friend Melina,” said Kempner before playing an older track, “Bullshit,” referring to Jay Som’s Melina Duterte, who was in the crowd after finishing a tour with boygenius. The two started the band Bachelor together during the pandemic. Evidently, that night, the Lodge Room cultivated a familial circle of genuine enthusiasts and collaborators.
alexalone opened the show with a heavy drone and subtle, soft vocals sprinkled over loud rock-and-roll. The trio put the crowd in a rhythmic daze, swept up in the ocean of sound, taking them out of it with the details: guitar solos running up the neck, drums breaking repetition with a thrashing flourish.
“We’re going into the HRT portion of the set,” said the opener’s titular Alex, reminding the audience just how queer and trans the night’s lineup was. Noting the queerness of bands can sometimes pigeonhole them or undermine their abilities with an emphasis on their identity before an emphasis on their music. But, at this show, the music and the musicians’ full selves blended effortlessly. What a joy: to watch talented rock bands fill the stage unabashedly and casually with queerness, especially when the crowd included the same types of cishet emo dudes who used to primarily take the spotlight in this scene.
Even as Palehound finished up their set, the audience cheered, hungry for more. During the encore, a fan yelled the name of a song, and Kempner said, “Woah, deep cut. I haven’t practiced that in like, 5 years. Maybe next time we play here.”
The fan responded, in a quieter voice, “I love you!”
