Model/Actriz Live at An Club Athens

Like their name suggests, Model/Actriz seek to channel raw emotions into striking new forms. Their debut record Dogsbody was sexy, dark, and humid, full of eerie passages and veiled menace. Model/Actriz’s sophomore album Pirouette, which was co-produced and mixed by Seth Manchester and mastered by Matt Colton, their collaborators on Dogsbody, swerves out of the maze and directly into the spotlight. It is Dogsbody’s equally accomplished, but much more self-possessed sister record – thumping and immediate rather than dark and obscure. Haden no longer vamps from the shadows but at the very front of the stage – and often in the very thick of the crowd – commanding the music’s chaotic center with a poise that channels Grace Jones and Lady Gaga. Like matinee or seraglio he pouts on Departures, all I want is to be beautiful. On standout track Cinderella, the singer’s strutting bravado suddenly gives way to crushing vulnerability – as he stares into a love interest’s eyes, he recounts the childhood shame of backing out of having a Cinderella-themed birthday party, a psychic scar that he’s still able to trace over years later. The inventiveness of the band’s cohesive musicianship is evident on Poppy, with Haden’s lyrics capturing the full scope of their ability to fluctuate between instrumental squalls and barreling, dissonant dance music: as flesh is made in marble/as marble captures softness/as softness holds a violence/within a pure expression. Aaron Shapiro, Ruben Radlauer, and Jack Wetmore are a fearsome unit, rearranging the floor and the ceiling of rock music, with punishment and uplift coming from the jagged but interlocking complexity of each band member responding to one another. Be embodied, Haden whispers at the beginning of Departures, as the trill of Wetmore’s guitar and the thump of Radlauer’s drums activate your senses from both high and low ends.