PHOTOS: Sextile Fully Excite with Dark and Stormy Post-Punk at Barracuda Austin (SXSW)

The first night of the music part of Austin’s South By South West Festival (SXSW) is usually a slow one, intensifying throughout the week and sort of exploding on Friday and Saturday nights. Checking, who’s playing kick-off Tuesday, I found to my great joy that Sextile, a band that I had on my personal list of must-sees, was playing Barracuda Austin (formerly Red 7) and I knew I had to be there no matter what!

I’ve only known Sextile’s gripping debut album “A Thousand Hands” (released on Felte Records in 2015), a very dark, post-punk/noise-rock, industrial album which I came to love and wanted to hear the music being played live. Other than that, I had no expectations or any idea how this would “look” like live. If there’s a wish list though of what I expect from a live show, I’d say that the four from California fulfilled all the criteria and exceeded expectations! Here’s a band that knows how to create their own brand of music and how to perform it live.

When Melissa Scaduto (drums), Eddie Wuebben (synths), Kenny Elkin (guitar, bass) and Brady Keehn (vocals, guitar) took the stage, something almost magical got unleashed. So much fuzzy energy, with a power bordering on anger and then so much surprising sweetness thrown in-between as well. It was one big ride on heavy, steady beats played in stand-up fashion, guitars with distortion, delays, reverbs, and vintage keys. Pretty heavenly music if it wasn’t for its overall dark vibe… I felt reminded of the music I loved so much when being age-wise closer to the band, yet this was all fresh, and new and ‘now’.

The show, like all truly awesome shows, was over far too quickly and here’s hope for a Sextile tour to come – New York is calling!

While our photos can only give a faint idea of what has transcendent, together with a track from their album and their excellent just released video they offer a taste of it.  Check ’em out. Additionally, browse by this spot-on concert review/interview which includes brilliant water colors of the four band mates. When we chatted with the band afterwards, Brady and Kenny could not have been any nicer, tracking Melissa and Eddie down so all four could sign our just acquired album. Thank you, guys for a fantastic show and for being so ‘real’.

(Click on photo to start the slide show.)

== All concert photos by glamglare.com – Elke Nominikat and Oliver Bouchard ==

Listen to “Visions of you”, follow Sextile on Facebook to stay connected and…

… watch the super cool, brand-new video to “Can’t Take It” and get lost in colors and black-and-white visuals alike.

Also on the Felte Record label are Australia’s Gold Class (review here), who are ‘dark’ and post-rock in a different way yet equally exciting. Get “A Thousand Hands” on iTunes and stay tuned for a new album to drop later this year.