Speedy Ortiz: Major Arcana

"[I]n celebration of the release of its full-length debut album, 'Major Arcana' ... Speedy Ortiz, which hails from Western Massachusetts, played the album start to finish, despite 'having never practiced that or done that,' said Sadie Dupuis, the wry frontwoman, and the band’s main engine. ... Behind her, the band echoes the slurry guitars, tonal abrasion and down atmosphere of early-to-mid-1990s indie rock like Helium or Polvo. ... Like the album, which at its best is clever and cutting, the show picked up in the second half, when Ms. Dupuis began to slash through the heaviness of the room ... with a voice that could be savage, on 'MKVI,' or deceptively sweet, on 'No Below,' or tart, as on 'Gary,' which is the album’s emotional highlight. That song includes some of Ms Dupuis’s sharpest lyrics, aimed at someone who left her for someone far less interesting: 'I have seen the art of my stupid counterpart. / The proportion’s wrong. / Every line unsure, / The erased marks like a sore thumb swelling and cumbersome'" (Jon Caramanica, "In Cranking Up Heat, Nature Offers a Head Start," New York Times, 7/7/13).

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