Those familiar with Anaheim’s strip mall hardcore mini-haven Chain Reaction might have raised their eyebrows seeing Frankie Cosmos on the calendar. The t-shirt covered walls exalt heroes of the scene (and adjacent ones) like My Chemical Romance’s Frank Iero and At the Drive-In, insulating the outside world from sounds that the tiny room and blown-out speakers alone could never do on their own. Warm and safe in its unapologetic DIY-ness, it was actually the perfect place to catch Greta Kline and company in action.
Singer-songwriter Katy Davidson resumed the moniker Dear Nora, their beloved project born just before the cusp of the aughts, after a decade of performing under different aliases. Their stripped-down mini-ballads remain as humbly poignant as ever, but Davidson’s tactful lyricism is much larger than the “one-person band” average—from tracks off of the quintessential Mountain Rock to 2018’s Skulls Example, their earnest melancholia and candid truths are a testament to the impact that one person can have. Past Dear Nora touring member Stephen Steinbrink’s lush, musical admissions are diaristically stunning, even when the songs are narratives about hypothetical others. Steinbrink and ensemble patched together a quietly stunning quilt of mourning, healing, and LSD dreams in eloquent-yet-understated piece.
In an atypical fashion, Frankie Cosmos was the loudest band of the night. Kline has been the unofficial queen of Bandcamp and a prolific songwriter since she was a teenager, a fountain of authenticity in all her creations. This West Coast tour is a celebration of Close It Quietly—their 2nd release since signing to Sub Pop, but one of many over years of the group’s collective history, starting back in the early 2010s with Kline’s Garageband bedroom recordings under Ingrid Superstar. While Frankie Cosmos’ sound has undoubtedly expanded into that of a fuller, more seasoned indie band, their front woman continues to open up to us more in her songwriting than what she lets on under the bright lights in between songs.
Self-deprecation morphs into a more mindful cynicism and wonder progresses into pensiveness—the stuff of mid-20s daydreams, as well as the latest songs to join the Frankie Cosmos canon. Pain and doubt were made light for carrying by Kline’s simplistic vocals, her three-piece backing band’s warm abundant as they experiment with new synth sounds, mixing tried-and-true compositions with surprising tastes of new melodic structure. The set primarily featured some of the most memorable tracks off of Close it Quietly (see “41st,” “Windows,” “So Blue—there are quite a few special moments in the 21-song collection), but left room to reflect gently upon past selves with pieces from their past three studio albums. The group threw in “Sad 2” in honor of Kline’s childhood dog Joe Joe, as well as nostalgic favorite “Outside With the Cuties” off of Next Thing as a fitting encore.
The end of the 2010s bookmarks formative periods for many of us (as any decade would), but perhaps this melding of identity particularly struck those of us who somehow found that we’d grown into adults over the past nine years. Frankie Cosmos not only soundtracks the coming-of-age stories of many a shy indie kid, but chronicles Kline’s own growth as she figures out how to be a person in a “world that is crumbling,” the words she so bluntly opens their latest album with. Lucky for us, the group hasn’t outgrown its bedroom pop confessional roots, bringing all that is still good from those times with them into a new era of realization.
(album art by Lauren Martin & Eliza Doyle)
Close it Quietly is available now digitally, in independent record stores, and at the Sub Pop shop in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
