Words by Russ Skelchy
Photo by Alejandro Lomeli
In the hierarchy of music scenes in California cities, Sacramento often lags behind the massive urban sprawls of the Los Angeles/Southland area and the San Francisco Bay Area. Over the past decade or so, things have changed drastically in Sacramento, especially evident in the number of artists, bands, and venues that have found fertile ground across the city. Touring acts passing through Northern California these days would be missing out on a great show not playing in Sacramento!
Thankfully, last Tuesday night, Twin Tribes and Urban Heat, two popular darkwave/postpunk groups from Texas dropped by to play a sold-out show on February 1st at Harlow’s. The tour has been quite a success so far with nine straight sold-out shows all the way up the West Coast from Pomona to Seattle.
Similar to contemporary darkwave duos like Drab Majesty or She Past Away, Twin Tribes is comprised of the duo, Luis Navarro (electric bass and electronics) and Joel Niño, Jr. (vocals and electric guitar). Their well-crafted melodic synth riffs and sparse, reverb-drenched guitar sound have made them the latest darkwave/synthpop duo to watch out for–odds are, if you’re into either genre you probably already know of them.
On this night, they performed songs from their freshly released album Pendulum (January 26) along with older favorites like “Into the Void” and “Fantasmas” to an adoring crowd comprised of Sacramento’s old and new goths alike. Visually, the duo presents a striking image reminiscent of what The Damned’s Dave Vanian might have looked like if he were from a Gulf Coast Texas border town. Some of this imagery also spills into Twin Tribes’ sound, especially their rock en Espanol influences: heard on tracks like “Sangre de Oro”.
Preceding Twin Tribes was Urban Heat, also from Texas but further north in Austin, brought a blistering set of melodic gothy synthwave postpunk goodness. Despite having three members–Pax Foley on bass, Kevin Naquin on electronics, Jonathan Horstmann on vocals and electric guitar–the star of this show clearly was frontman Horstmann, whose compelling stage presence whipped the crowd into a fervor, kicking, jumping, and punching as he strutted the stage shirtless, crooning in his deep baritone voice. Besides bringing the energy, Horstmann spoke earnestly and openly in between songs about mental health challenges he has faced and the need to “take care of each other”—themes that resonated with the lyrics he penned for Urban Heat songs like “Have You Ever” or “That Gun in Your Hand”.
And finally, the night’s opener was Santa Cruz-based Vandal Moon–a duo with Blake Voss on vocals, guitars, and synths, and Jeremy Einsiedler on drum machines and synths–whose “sound is rooted in post-punk and new wave, with darker, gothic undertones of the early 80’s.” Their most recent album, Queen of the Night, is a concept record telling the story of its young, deadly, beautiful titular character, a “woman living in our dystopian present-day…a world that’s falling apart.”
The darkwavy threesome’s tour continues with dates in El Paso (2/10) and San Antonio (2/11) so catch ’em blowing through your town if you happen to reside in El Chuco or Mission City.