Some Days Are Darker joined underground darkwave royalty at The Regent Theater
On the final night of a co-headline Darker Spring Tour that brought together the legendary talents of 1980s post punk underground heavyweights Bolshoi Brothers (formerly The Bolshoi) and Theatre Of Hate, New York City post-goth trio Some Days Are Darker opened the evening with a showcase of prowess that joined gothic romanticism and neo-noir fatalism with a cinematic sense of scale.
Los Angeles was uncommonly still as the final moments of the golden hour receded into a bourgeoning twilight, towering buildings seemingly closing in over nearly vacant streets like the petals of a black rose in mourning for the passing of the sun beyond imposing pillars of a metropolitan mausoleum. The neon marquee of The Regent Theater crackled to life above the pavement, beckoning a flock of wayward souls to enter and congregate at the foot of a stage that would soon welcome a procession of drab majesties from the shadowy side of alternative music’s most heady eras.
Arrayed beneath searingly sanguine heraldry rendered in impossibly sharp script, Some Days Are Darker unfurled their set with powerful intention. Menacing basslines stalked amongst organic percussion, thrumming in harmony with the primal intensity of wild animals in predatory pursuit. Rising above the cataclysmic thunder, frontman Lear Mason’s chiming guitar and magnetic croon added nuance and refinement to the din, like the civilized brutality of an armored crusader in chivalrous devotion to the ephemeral mythology of a romantic ideal. Selections from Some Days Are Darker’s most recent EP TV-MA, new singles from their forthcoming full-length, and deep cuts from the genesis of the band played out with impeccable grandeur, as the immediacy of the sound drew in close new recruits and devoted disciples like so many dusty moths encircling a solitary flame.
By the time Theatre Of Hate took the stage the room was tangibly buzzing from the afterglow of Some Days Are Darker’s intoxicating spell. But that’s a story for another time.
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