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The ink isn’t even dry on my review of the mighty Swervedriver’s March 31 show at Bowery Ballroom, and just 39 days later half of that band – singer/guitarist Adam Franklin and drummer Mikey Jones – were playing again in NYC, this time as part of Franklin’s Bolts of Melody. After the Bowery show, it was a bit disconcerting seeing them on this much smaller stage, in a venue about one-fifth the size. (The Grand Victory, which featured a smattering of vintage war-themed posters on the wall and an American flag draped behind the stage, used to be Bruar Falls.) They were joined on second guitar by Jones’s bandmate from the night’s opening band Heaven, Matt Sumrow (playing in place of Locksley Taylor), as well as regular Bolts bassist Josh Stoddard. Despite having 3/4 of the lineup from the only album “officially” credited to Adam Franklin & Bolts of Melody, 2010’s I Could Sleep for a Thousand Years (Sumrow actually played bass on it, however), they only played one song from it, “Spent Bullets.” Instead, the set focused on Franklin’s two earlier solo albums, 2007’s Bolts of Melody and 2009’s Spent Bullets.
Given the focus on those two LPs, the show highlighted Franklin’s moodier, more ethereal psych-folk side, in contrast to Swervedriver’s full-on blast furnace rockers. On Bolts songs like “Morning Rain,” “Theme from LSD,” and “Ramonesland” – the latter’s elongated outro ended the show in mesmerizing fashion – the otherworldly, hypnotic guitars felt like an assault on the brain cells (not to mention my eardrums, thanks to the club’s ear-splittingly loud sound system). Meanwhile, in the hands of this formidable lineup, Bullets tracks like “Surge” and especially “Champs” seemed to double in intensity from the album versions, with those guitars once again engulfing the small room. Even after seeing him 17 times in his various incarnations, an Adam Franklin-fronted show never fails to blow my mind.
