Chapel Hill natives Polvo pretty much set the standard for the indie off-shoot known as math rock for the better part of a decade. And while many purveyors of the genre became wrapped up in increasingly intricate and progressive compositions solely because of their difficulty and inaccessibility (as Pittsburgh legends Don Caballero can attest), Polvo managed to infuse even their most complicated songs with the primal, free-wheeling energy of classic hard rock.
Their 2009 release In Prism was their first in twelve years, but clearly showed the Merge stawlwarts had yet to miss a beat. While the release had all of the genre’s signifiers intact (alternative guitar tunings, jacked up time signatures, eight minute plus tracks), present was an atmosphere of loose improvisation and spacey, psychedelic expansion. Regardless, the show the this Thursday at the Brillobox plans to be quite the head trip with these pioneers of math rock still capable of melting faces and local rockers The Ceiling Stares and new comers Broughton’s Rules filling out the bill.
