by Tim McMahan, Lazy-i.com

Prior to last Friday’s Porches show I knew very little about the band other than the brief research and listening needed to write the preview earlier that morning. I spent a few hours with their last couple albums, wherein I found their latest, Shirt, more to my liking than the previous album, if only because it was, well, less focused. Even then, frontmat/singer/songwriter Aaron Maine’s scratchy voice – augmented by electronics or autotune (or something) – often came off as meandering and twee.

What Porches presented to a crowd of around 50 Friday night at Reverb Lounge was completely different. Playing as a traditional four-piece (two guitars, bass and drums – no synths in sight), Maine and his cohorts reinvented themselves into a modern slacker-indie rock band, revving up Porches’ bedroom songs into rock anthems.

No longer tied to an auto-tuner or electronic effects (or if there was a pedal doing something, I couldn’t tell), Maine’s usual gravel whisper shifted into a full-blown growl. The comparison musically and vocally is possibly Car Seat Headrest, with Maine sounding like an adult Will Toledo if Will had grown up listening to Kurt Cobain (which he probably did). 

The 16-song set (plus a three-song encore) was highlighted by rock versions of songs off the latest album (including opener “Rag,” “Joker” and “Bread Believer,”) but also drew from older material (a ripping version of “Range Rover” from 2020’s Ricky Music and crowd requested “Underwater” from 2016’s Pool were set highlights). 

A live recording of Friday night’s set definitely would be on heavy rotation in my earbuds/VW car stereo if one existed. I had a similar pleasant-surprise experience when Spirit of the Beehive played at Slowdown a few years ago. That band’s albums are hard-to-swallow audio experiments to my ears, but live, they transformed into a rock-hard indie band unrecognizable from their recordings. More of that, please.

Side note: This also was one of the loudest shows I’ve seen at Reverb – my Apple Watch sound meter kept going off, warning me of high dBs. Happy I had my earplugs…

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Read Tim McMahan’s blog daily at Lazy-i.com — an online music magazine that includes feature interviews, reviews and news. The focus is on the national indie music scene with a special emphasis on the best original bands in the Omaha area. Copyright © 2024 Tim McMahan. All rights reserved.