I can’t believe that I actually worried that The Joy Formidable would falter in recreating the sounds of their grandiose sophomore album Wolf’s Law. There’s some gentle harp pluckage here, electronic squiggles there – a more textured, layered sound than their wall of guitar-noise debut album. But at Wednesday’s jam-packed show at Fitzgerald’s, the Welsh trio took all that refinery and exploded it into a lead-heavy, pulverizing set that required no particular nuances – just pure grit and bombast and the manic pixie charisma of lead singer and guitarist Ritzy Bryan.

Hit the jump for the full recap.

– sunbear

That’s not to say that bassist Rhydian Dafydd and drummer Matt Thomas sat in the shallows, waiting for their moment to shine. Dafydd crossed over the stage many times, untethered to his pedal board, to perch atop the drumkit and let his rock star flag fly. And Thomas had a wildcard, Jon Wurster-esque vibe that fueled blast beat, double bass moments like they were machine guns. And boy did he love his gong.

But there’s no denying the ferociously jubilant Bryan, who was all raw power and blonde hair, zipping across the stage like a pinball, fiercely manhandling her guitar to the tune of the blistering “Cholla” or the proggy “Maw Maw Song.” Bryan’s unchecked ecstasy brought a sprightly lightness to the overwhelmingly powerful sound the band was creating. The groovy “This Ladder is Ours” nearly spun out of control in it’s final refrains, just as set-closer and The Joy Formidable’s calling card song “Whirring” ended the night on a colossal My Bloody Valentine-like note.

The Joy Formidable have always created arena-sized songs, but with their newest and most commercially successful album to date, the bare-bones but big-as-fuck Welsh band can carry their own weight into headlining status and decimate all in their path.

SETLIST:

Cholla
Austere
This Ladder Is Ours
The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade
Little Blimp
Cradle
Tendons
Silent Treatment
Maw Maw Song
I Don’t Want to See You Like This
The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie

Forest Serenade
Wolf’s Law
Whirring