Review - She Keeps Bees @ The Lexington 9/3/2010

Review - She Keeps Bees @ The Lexington 9/3/2010


This wonderfully effective Brooklyn duo came to The Lexington at the latter stage of a European tour supporting 2009's Nests, and more than lived-up to their reputation as a fine live band in front of an expectant and sold-out venue.
They took to the stage as casually and unceremoniously as a pub band, but demonstrated their superior class and road-honed tightness instantly. The music is purposefully simple. Every song is short and sweet (and sour), with each part and melody boiled down to its essence for maximum impact. Like the line-up (and front-woman Jessica Larrabee herself), it is all lean and no fat.
Larrabee is a one woman guitarmy, banging out tough dark bluesy riffs and teasing out lush chord patterns with the same authority and relaxed fluidity. Her voice - like many of the best rock vocalists - is warm and soulful, yet edgy. Drummer Andy La Plant is a dynamic powerhouse but has a sensitive musicality to his playing that complements Larrabee beautifully. When she downed guitar for two acapella tracks, the songs were no less effective for it. Each track was a sensual tour-de-force, culminating in a devastating solo Larrabee performance of ‘Cage Match’ dedicated to her sister, who was in the audience.
Larrabee is an engaging and endearingly manic onstage presence, with her good-humoured banter serving as a foil to the intensity of the music. She said she felt the need to talk after playing so many non-English speaking countries, and between tracks she entertained the audience with amusing anecdotes from the current tour - including tales of Andy’s hospitalization in Paris and of the limitations of German cuisine. The only negative was that, at just under an hour, the set was too short.
Larrabee and La Plant are a real-life couple, and at one stage Jessica wistfully wondered aloud whether Andy was ever intending to propose to her. Musically at least, they already seem to have reached some form of sacred union.