When alternative rock band Palehound stepped onstage at the Sinclair Oct. 18, it was the band’s second time performing in Boston in three weeks — and it showed. The band displayed its ease onstage throughout the lively show, with lead singer El Kempner bantering playfully with the audience, and their bandmates, Zoë Brecher and Larz Brogan, dancing tirelessly.
Palehound opened for indie supergroup boygenius at MGM Music Hall at Fenway in September, but the more intimate Sinclair was far better suited to its smaller — yet fiercely dedicated — fanbase. Palehound’s show in Boston was the second stop on the band’s U.S. tour to promote its fourth album “Eye on the Bat,” released July 14 via Polyvinyl.
The concert opened with a short, but intense, 30-minute set from Philadelphia-based noise punk band Empath. The band members headbanged, bopped and gave their all onstage, and didn’t address the audience until the end of the set to introduce themselves and thank the concertgoers for attending. Singer-guitarist Catherine Elicson’s soft voice was barely audible over her vigorous shredding on the electric guitar and the deafening drums, but the zealous performance nevertheless energized the crowd for Palehound’s enthusiastically greeted entrance.
“This happened last time, too,” Kempner said of Empath’s set. “[Empath] plays and we get all hyped up, like ‘let’s fucking go,’ and then I lose my breath.”
Palehound kicked off its performance with its recent hit “Good Sex,” a brief, narrative song that nostalgically recounts a sexual encounter with a former lover. The audience shouted along to the wry lyrics with verve, “Bad sex makes a good joke / That anyone can get / But good sex makes a bad joke / That’s only funny if you were there.” The band followed it up with two more crowd-pleasers, “Independence Day” and “The Clutch,” both well-received singles off of the new album. Rolling Stone recently named Kempner one of the 250 Greatest Guitarists of All Time, and the intricate guitar strumming on both tracks was specifically called out as evidence of the musician’s prowess.
Although Palehound mostly played songs from “Eye on the Bat,” the band occasionally treated the audience to older fan favorites like “Room,” a catchy meditation on the pleasures of suddenly being able to share your room with a partner, from its 2017 album “A Place I’ll Always Go.” Fans in the crowd expressed particular excitement at the opening chords of the well-loved “Cinnamon” from its debut album “Dry Food,” eager to illustrate to the band their longtime fandom by whooping in approval and nodding along to the song’s many delicate arpeggios.
Palehound closed the main set with the softer, moodier “Fadin’,” which is also the final track on “Eye on the Bat.” Lowering the distortion on their guitar, Kempner gave the song an acoustic feel, lamenting the inevitable process of forgetting and moving on from a former partner that contrasted the angrier, more passionate breakup songs that preceded it. Luckily, the crowd ensured that the night did not end on a gloomy note by screaming for the band to return to the stage.
For its two-song encore, Palehound performed the excellent tracks “Bullshit” and “Killer” from its 2019 album “Black Friday,” the former being a muted, melancholic recollection of a partner who can’t seem to love themselves and the latter being a thrillingly gruesome track with a memorable chorus the audience gleefully sang along to: “I wanna be the one who kills the man who hurt you, darling.”
The band made sure to state its appreciation to the crowd for their support, and Kempner even described the Sinclair as “one of their favorite venues to play,” reminiscing about when they used to work in the Harvard bookstore after dropping out of Sarah Lawrence College to move to Boston and work on their music career.
“We put out this record during a time when we didn’t know if we were going to be able to tour, so it’s really special we can play these songs live for you,” Kempner said. “We’re really grateful.”
