New York’s Show Me the Body headlined a sweaty, action-packed show at San Antonio’s Paper Tiger on Tuesday that offered ample evidence hardcore punk, despite its stylistic limitations, is still a vital, gritty and dangerous musical force.
The critically acclaimed trio incorporates distorted banjo, discordant keyboards and an almost hip-hop-like vocal delivery into songs pinned down by a driving rhythm section. As with most great hardcore bands, radical politics are at the forefront.
The crowd ate up SMTB’s dynamics, which shifted between quiet introspection, danceable post-punk and periodic screeds of white noise. Some in the audience sang along as singer and banjo-basher Julian Cashwan Pratt spat lyrics into the mic. Others, swept up in the frantic energy, orchestrated stage dives.
The tour’s opening acts included Jesus Piece, Scowl, Zulu — all of whom specialized in similarly searing brands of hardcore — and boundary-pushing hip-hop outfit TRiPPJONES.
With SMTB at the helm, the bill proved that, especially in these politically perilous times, hardcore remains a genre with both room for growth and valuable ideas to express.
